Late Dawns and Early Sunsets
by katiero
Summary: There's something different about Frank, and whatever it is, Gerard wants it. **Not an X-Over, there was no category that fitted.
1. Freshly Plastered

I was woken by a large crash to my left. I forced my eyes open and pulled myself into a sitting position. As my eyes began to focus, I realised I had no idea where I was. The walls were freshly plastered and a stark white. The sun filtered in through a large window on my left side, blinding me with its burning rays. The room was filled with boxes, large and small. I looked down to see that I had slept on a bare mattress. I remembered what had woken me and glanced around for the source of the noise, and saw emerging from behind a pile of boxes a blonde head I recognised. It was my brother Mikey and he was clutching his foot and hopping, apparently in pain.

"Stupid box," he muttered, and then glanced upwards to me.

His face went from the palest of white to crimson red in a split second.

"Sorry Gee," he said, a little louder this time, "did I wake you?"

Of course he did, I thought to myself.

"Nope," I said, as cheerfully as I could muster, "I was just about to get up."

"Good," Mikey replied, "because Mom wants help unloading the truck."

The truck? I was just about to question Mikey further when it all came back to me. The truck. With all of our furniture and belongings. Because we'd moved house. I sighed, wondering how I could had forgotten. I glanced around the floor for the jeans I had strewn there the previous night, before I had collapsed into a deep sleep on the mattress. I found them, pulled them on, and walked out into the startlingly bright morning, comforted only by the fact that somewhere in the truck was our coffee machine.

It took us almost the full day to unload the truck. Our house in Newark had been a lot smaller than the house we were moving into, but it sure seemed to have a lot of furniture. We put all the items in the general area that it was going to be situated, with the exception of mine and Mikey's furniture. Mine would be going downstairs, into my basement room, and Mikey's upstairs, into his attic room. The basement was originally going to be the TV room, but after hours of complaining about my room being too bright, I eventually was given the basement. We started on the kitchen first, and it took about an hour to set up. We took a well earned coffee break, and then we moved onto Mikey's room, and then mine, then mom's. We called it a night then, and went to bed.

I descended the stairs to my basement room, and immediately decided it was my favourite room in the house. Unlike the other rooms which were all freshly plastered, this room had been painted. It was a dark grey, almost black. The room had four tiny windows, big enough to circulate air but small enough to keep the room dim. I placed my bed against a wall, making it up with my new black sheets. I found the box with my posters, and set to work plastering as many as possible on the bare wall across from my bed. They varied a lot, from Misfits to Bowie to Thin Lizzy to Bruce Springsteen to Queen. They were very colourful, probably the only colour in my room.

I found the flat pack furniture boxes and began to assemble my wardrobe, three small tables bookshelf, desk and easel. It didn't take long, I was good with my hands. I made an effort to hang up all my clothes, just to get them out of the way. I took a canvas from the box of canvasses I'd brought with me and placed it on the easel which I'd put in the corner beside my ensuite. I took one of the small tables and put it beside the easel. I rummaged in a box until I found my paints and placed them on the table. I moved onto the desk, unpacking all my drawing materials, a desk lamp and a light box. I put one of the other tables beside my bed, and pushed the other into another corner and put my TV on it. I had two armchairs and put them beside my TV. I put the box labelled "bathroom" into the bathroom and collapsed onto my bed, feeling strangely excited. Maybe this place could be better than Newark. Maybe I wouldn't get bullied. Maybe I would make friends. I fell asleep imagining all the friends I could make and the girls I could get.


	2. A Clean Slate

We moved our stuff in on Friday, and today was Sunday. I'd lived one full day in the house, and I decided I liked living here in Monroeville much more than Newark. Back in Newark, I was the emo fag who had no friends, despite not being emo or a fag. Here, I was being offered a fresh start. My mom wouldn't be starting her new job for 3 weeks but Mikey and I would be starting at Monroe High School tomorrow. We would be there for the first day of the new year, and I really appreciated Mom making the effort to get us here in time. Mikey and I were planning to drive down there today in my new car, just so we wouldn't get lost tomorrow. We had to pick up some leaflets and shit that had been sent out to the other students at the start of the summer.

I stretched, arching my back away from the soft black sheets, and sat up in bed. I got dressed, surprised at how I was really keeping the place tidy. My attire was my usual, head to toe black, with a splash of colour in the form of red writing on my hoodie. I made my way upstairs and into the kitchen, where a rich smell drew me to the little silver machine on the countertop. I found my usual mug and placed it under the tap, pressing the button and watching as the brown liquid poured out like liquid happiness. Coffee, the only thing worth living for. I shuffled into the living room, my previous bedroom, where Mikey and my mom were excitedly sticking Mikey's name on all of his new school books. The little dude was so excited, this was his first year in high school. I smiled, a rare occurrence. I plonked myself down on the couch and switched on the TV. There was nothing interesting on, but I watched it anyways. When Mikey seemed to be finished with his book labelling duties, I asked him if he was ready to come check out the school.

You'd swear he was being offered a unicorn on a stick. He jumped up so quick that I'm surprised he didn't break his back, and squealed happily.

"I'll be right back," he said, "just gotta grab a hoodie."

When he left the room, my mom came and sat beside me. She turned off the TV and looked right into my eyes.

"You know I did this for you Gee? I just want you to be happy, okay? I want you to really try to fit in. This is your senior year, I just want my boy to enjoy it." she said, smiling.

She reached out and held my head in between her two soft hands, and kissed my forehead.

"And for God's sake, don't burst Mikey's bubble. He's so excited, he doesn't need your high school horror stories!"

Mikey walked back into the room. "I'm ready Gee!" he beamed, pretty much jumping up and down with excitement.

I threw him my keys.

"Go sit shotgun, I'll be out in a sec," I said.

Once I heard the front door slam, I walked through into the kitchen, where my mom was cleaning our coffee cups.

"Thanks mom," I said, really sincerely, "and don't worry about Mikey… I'll look after him."

My mom shot me her best smile, and I found myself smiling back. So much smiling today. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all.

It was surprisingly easy to find the high school. There was only one main street in Monroeville, and once you found that you could find anything. Mikey and I went into the school to be met by a plump lady dressed in pink and purple called Flora who we found out was the secretary. She handed us each an envelope with all of our information, homerooms, teachers, tutors, timetable and all that kind of thing. She wished us good luck in our new house and school and waddled off back into the main office. Mikey was eager to have a look around the school so I went with him. We managed to find most of our classrooms and our lockers, both quite close to each other. Mikey's homeroom was on the second floor, right beside the chemistry lab, and mine was directly below it. The only room we couldn't find was the art room, but I decided I'd find it tomorrow. We bumped into Flora on the way out and she said goodbye.

Mikey was buzzing the whole way home in the car, he pretty much levitated around the grocery store as we bought some food. I really hoped, for Mikey's sake, that the people at this school were nice. It would kill me to see Mikey's hopes crushed. He didn't seem to care much about the people though. He gushed all his news to our mom when we got home, he was genuinely so excited. I realised his excitement was slowly rubbing off on me.

I went down to my room and sat at my desk and began to sketch, I didn't know what. I drew a tree, with leaves just starting to brown. The wind was blowing lightly and a few crackly leaves had begun to gather underneath the tree in a pile. Sitting in the pile I drew Mikey, eyes down, totally engaged on something out of view on the ground. There was an excited and perplexed look on his face, just like this morning when he'd been labelling his books. I found some watercolour pencils and scratched some colour onto my drawing, using a paintbrush to blend the pencil into swirls of colour. By the time I'd finished, the pencill had smudged and turned Mikey's expression into one of concentration and anger.

This made me angry, an hour's work ruined. I pushed the paper to the top of my desk and it fell down the back. I stomped up the stairs to eat my dinner, my bad mood evaporating the second I saw how happy my mom and Mikey were.

I retreated back to my room after dinner, showering and laying out some clothes for tomorrow. I chose black skinny jeans, a black t-shirt and a dark blue hoodie. I didn't even know where the hoodie had come from, but it was clean and so I'd wear it. I sunk into bed, extremely tired, but it took me a while to fall asleep because of the butterflies in my stomach.


	3. Unaccounted Emotions

Needles. So many needles. On the walls, coming in the windows, surrounding and engulfing me. I screamed as the first one pierced my skin and the scream turned to a blood curdling shriek as more and more pushed their way through my soft flesh. I tried to move, to escape, but every time I did they just plunged deeper into me. I stopped struggling and accepted the fact that I was going to die. Any minute now, I thought, they'll puncture something vital and it will all be over. Soon, I thought. But they didn't. they kept coming until every inch of skin was covered, then a flash and it all went black.

I woke to find myself drenched in sweat. My bed sheets were tangled up in me and my duvet was halfway across the room. I glanced at the clock. 6:29am, the red LED lights told me. My hand darted out from under me, but not quick enough to stop the piercing sound of the alarm clock ringing as the numbers turned to 6:30am. I groaned, and somehow managed to get out of bed and shuffle to the bathroom. I showered off the sweat and woke myself up in the process with the water changing from warm heaven to icy doom in a matter of seconds once the hot water ran out. I gave my hair a quick towel dry and got dressed.

I still had no idea where the blue hoodie came from, or what the strange artwork on it meant, but the design intrigued me so I pulled it on.

I clomped upstairs to grab a coffee and a light breakfast before my first day. My bag had been prepared lovingly by my mom, who knew that I'd forget and then scramble franticly for it in the morning. It was the same scruffy black bag that I'd used since the fourth grade, I'd just added band patches to it. It was still in perfect condition, so I'd never found a reason to get a new one.

Mikey bundled down the stairs and into the kitchen. He drank a cup of coffee in 2 seconds straight, then slammed his cup down on the table.

"More!" he insisted.

He downed 3 more cups of coffee in this manner, before sprinting for the bathroom. When he returned, he asked for more but was refused it by our mom. She ruffled his hair, handed him a slice of toast and his schoolbag and sent the two of us out the door. I don't know how, but somehow, an hour had passed since I'd woken that morning, and it was almost time to leave for school.

As we drove down the main street, we saw a couple of kids who were obviously headed for our school. They looked tired, red faced and very unfriendly. I was beginning to get a bad feeling that didn't fade as I drove into the school grounds and parked my car near the gate. I arranged to meet Mikey here after school, gave him a pat on the back, and watched him as he walked off into the stream of people entering the school. I sat on the car bonnet for a minute or two and just watched everyone walk in. Some seemed genuinely excited, probably juniors, others looked suicidal, and others just looked normal and accepting of the fact that you had to go to school. I decided I wanted to be in the latter group and so locked the car, sighed, and joined the people walking into my new school.

I entered the school and made my way to my homeroom, which was first class. I was extremely glad that I'd checked out the school beforehand because otherwise I would be extremely lost. I chose a seat on the edge of a row, near the back, away from the other people who had begun to gather in the classroom. Eventually the room began to fill up and the seat behind and in front of me filled, but the desk to my left side remained empty. The bell rang and a couple of minutes later, a teacher entered the room.

She was middle aged, with red hair and a soft expression. She wore black pants, a white shirt, and a red tie which she'd personalised with Queen lyrics. I'd only known her a few minutes but I decided that I liked her. Her name was Ms. Williams and she was our class tutor for the year. She quickly drew up our timetable on the board, adding little twists and flicks to the design which I thought were awesome.

Despite all her niceness, the other students obviously didn't like her. I heard the boys behind me whispering about how she was a whore and a stupid cow for giving them detention last year. Their annoying voices had been niggling at my head for a few minutes, so I turned around to confront them.

Before I had uttered a word, my head had snapped back in the direction of the door when it crashed open. In stumbled a short, black haired boy, whose pale cheeks had begun to take on a rosy colour. He apologised for his lateness to Ms. Williams and shuffled down the aisles of tables to find a free one. There was only one table left, the one beside me.

From in front of me, I heard someone say "Nice way to make an entrance, Iero," and a couple of sniggers echoed from around the classroom.

Ms Williams chose to pretend she didn't hear that comment and continued explaining whatever she was saying about a new school ethos. I glanced over at the dark haired kid. I opened my mouth to ask him if he was okay, but he caught me looking at him before I had formed a word.

"What are you fucking looking at me for?" he spat at me.

"I-I-I just wanted to see if you were okay," I whispered, "I know what it feels like to be called cruel shit."

"I'm fucking top of the morning," he hissed, "and I don't need your sympathy or your fucking sob story. So fuck off." He turned his head away from me and I sighed. Never fucking again was I going to try to be nice. The bell went and I made my way to my next class, which happened to be Music.

In the Music classroom, something happened to me that had never happened to me before; I actually fit in. I took a seat beside some kids with cool band shirts, and I clicked with them immediately. Their names are Josh, Taylor and Ray and they seem pretty cool. The music teacher noticed I was new and called me up to his desk. He asked what instruments I played, and I ashamedly told him I didn't play anything, I just sung.

He was shocked, apparently "the school doesn't have any male singers, it's so great you're a singer!" and arranged for me to meet him sometime and sing for him. I laughed and agreed, and went back to my new group of friends, who it turns out are in all of my classes, bar one. I had an okay day, managing to make my way through the day scat free until last period; Art.

As the bell for last period went, I realised truly how fucked I was. I had no clue where the art room was, not even the slightest idea. After wandering the corridors for a few minutes, I made my way back to the office and asked Flora for help.

"Ah, Art Dep always eludes people," she chuckled.

She led me to a dead end corridor, and pointed to a set of stairs leading downwards that I hadn't noticed before. I thanked her, and made my way down. I hoped the art teacher was nice. I pushed the door open and the smell of wet acrylic paint met my nose. Ms Williams glanced up from her desk.

"Ah, you must be Gerard! You're in my tutor class right? I'm Ms Williams, nice to meet you, again."

I knew there was something distinctly arty about her. I realised that I didn't see any other students and took a look around.

"So you've noticed my emptiness?" she said, and laughed. "There's meant to be another kid here, but he's a no show. So I guess it's me and you."

I laughed too, imagining how awkward this was going to be. But I was surprised to find it wasn't. She set me a task, sketching a still life of a razor blade plunged into a Bible. I liked the image, and tried really hard at perfecting it. It didn't take long, so I added a few personal touches, making the Bible bleed and putting it on a background of broken stone with a few blades of grass poking through. When I presented it to Ms Williams at the end of class, she looked genuinely impressed.

"You have a talent Gerard," she said, sounding extremely serious in a way I'd never heard anyone before. "Don't waste it. Don't do anything stupid."

I promised her I wouldn't and left her classroom, still not really sure what she meant. I met Josh, Taylor and Ray on the way out, and they invited me to what they called "the most killer party ever, man" which was on in a club in town that night. I agreed to go, and exchanged numbers with them, saying I'd meet them at eight.

Mikey was waiting at the car, talking to someone I didn't recognise. As I neared, I did recognise the person. It was that weird kid from homeroom. He left as soon as he saw me approaching. I clicked the car unlocked and Mikey sat in. He was extremely happy, he had cool teachers and a huge group of friends already. I asked him what the kid wanted.

"He said I looked like a bass player," Mikey said, "and that I should give it a try. Strange dude."

Exactly, I thought, feeling something in my stomach I was ashamed to realise was jealousy of Mikey. The kid had been straight up fucking rude to me, but all happy families with Mikey? I sighed, and I turned on the car radio, blasting the Smashing Pumpkins the whole way home, Mikey and I both screaming out the lyrics totally off key but loving it anyways.

When we got home, we both became blubbering messes, telling Mom the events of the day, and the events planned for tonight.

"Already meeting up with friends? Well I never, my two boys becoming social butterflies!" she exclaimed.

She handed us dinner, a delicious looking mac'n'cheese, gave us ten dollars each and wished us luck on our social outings. I smiled, and then made my way out the door to meet my friends.

My friends. Those are two beautiful words that I will never ever get sick of rolling off my tongue.


	4. For the First Time

I was at the arranged meeting point at exactly eight o'clock, but ended up waiting almost twenty minutes for Taylor, Josh and Ray. They told me they'd made a pitstop at an off licence to buy some drink. I smiled, though underneath I was terrified. Alcohol? I could barely keep soda down.

We piled into my car, with Josh in the passenger seat directing us to his house. It was a long way out of Monroeville, on the edge of a much larger town called Overton. We got out of his car and went into his house. Well, less of a house and more of a mansion.

"His parents own a lotta land," Taylor whispered while Josh struggled to open the front door.

Once inside, the extent of Josh's wealth became more obvious. He had a marble staircase for fucks sake! However, his wealth didn't seem to matter to the other dudes as we climbed the stairs into his bedroom. He immediately threw us all a can of beer and set about pouring out vodka shots. I reluctantly drank the beer, but after reaching the bottom of my can, I had a bubbling warmth growing inside me. I was first to take a vodka shot, not expecting the burn of the alcohol slithering down my throat but still I went back for more. I gave up after four shots and two cans, a measly amount compared to the others but they were so caught up in getting drunk they didn't notice me stopping.

Once we were all heavily intoxicated, we made the short trip to Paradise nightclub in Overton. It was meant to be an over 21's club, but the bouncers didn't seem to notice our youth. We made our way inside to be met with pounding music, flashing lights and hundreds of dancing bodies. Josh pulled us over to a slightly quieter corner.

"Our aim," he shouted, "get laid by the sexiest babe in this club. Take pictures for evidence. My parents are away all night so you can bring her back there… or you know, fuck her in the street, whatever you're into."

Ray and Taylor laughed, Ray patting Josh's back.

"Totally gonna whip your ass this time Josh!" he said, smiling mischievously.

I still couldn't believe what I was being told to do. Maybe it was okay for these guys, but I was a virgin and I'd never even had a girlfriend. I had no idea how to talk to a girl, let alone get one in bed. I made my way to the bar and bought five more vodka shots, downing them one after one until I could barely see. After a minute or two, my sight came back and I found myself filled with a newfound confidence. I can do this, I thought, I can win their stupid little fucking competition.

I stumbled away from the bar and into the crowd. Most girls who were in any way good looking were draped around guys, but I spotted a girl dancing right in the centre of the crowd. She seemed to have no one near her so I pushed through to get to her. I caught her attention and gave her what I hoped was a suggestive smile. Whatever it was, it seemed to work. She put her hands around my neck and latched onto my mouth, pushing her tongue through my lips and halfway down my throat. Once I learned how to do it back to her, it actually wasn't that bad. In fact, it was quite nice. We kissed for a little while, and then I felt myself being pushed backwards through the crowd, and then I was out of the crowd and on a couch, and she was straddling me. The kiss became rougher, a fight for power, a fight which I lost the second she began to grind her hips onto mine. The second I felt myself go hard, I remembered what my aim in this game was. I lifted her off me and she seemed a little insulted, her cloudy eyes trying to meet mine with a confused expression. She lost her confusion the second I took her hand and led her towards the door. She giggled, and once we got outside, she pinned me to the wall and started making out with me again. The making out was nice and all, but I just wanted to win this stupid dare. I pushed her off me again, this time she was super confused. She was still confused as I led her down the main street and off into a residential estate, and still seemed to be confused until I pushed the door of Josh's house open.

"Oh," she said, "I see."

She began to strip as we made the climb to Josh's room, and was left in only her bra and underwear by the time I'd closed the door.

I took off my hoodie and shirt, leaving only my jeans on. I was kinda new to this shit but she obviously wasn't. She pushed me onto Josh's bed, with more power than before, and forced herself onto my mouth, sticking her tongue deeper into my throat than I thought was humanly possible. She pulled away from my mouth, moving down to my throat, kissing it gently but applying more pressure as she got closer to my jaw. I let a low grunt escape my mouth, and she seemed to take this as an invitation to pull down my pants and boxers in one go. I began to get worried. I didn't think I was ready to lose my virginity, not like this anyway. However, all my worries escaped me when she started to play with me. It felt better than any time I had jacked myself off, her tiny fingers caressing the folds in my skin. She dropped to her knees and put me inside her mouth. And with that, all my worries left me in the form of a sigh that turned into a groan before it was finished. Her tongue felt so amazing on my dick, better than anything I'd ever felt before. She seemed to know exactly how to make it feel good. I bucked my hips into her, and she replied by sucking harder and increasing the speed. She lifted her hands up and began stroking my balls, getting into all the crevices and squeezing them. I felt myself getting closer and closer to coming and there was no way I was letting this go. I put my hands on her head and pushed her harder than she could have gone alone. I let another groan echo from inside my throat as I came and she swallowed. I lay back in the bed, feeling so amazing. Did this count as losing my virginity? The girl obviously didn't think so.

She pulled her bra off and stepped out of her underwear, revealing perfect breasts and a perfect… something else. I should have been worried then, because I felt no sexual attraction to her in any way, but the mixture of the alcohol and the orgasm was enough to cloud my mind. She straddled me again, and pushed me under the covers. I didn't know what was happening until I felt her push me inside of her. I almost squealed, whatever she was doing didn't feel right or nice. I looked up at her, and her face was screwed into a look of intense pleasure that she hadn't possessed while giving me a blow job. I felt a strange need to repay her the favour she had given me, so I rolled over on top of her and thrust my hips into her the way she seemed to like it. She started to groan, and they slowly got louder until they were almost screams. I couldn't understand how this felt so good for her, it just felt wrong to me. I kept plunging myself deeper and deeper into her, not for the pleasure, because there was none, but because she had her hands on my ass and was controlling my every movement. I started to get tired so I rolled off her, and I was stunned to find her climbing back on top of me and doing it again. She bounced herself up and down on me, making the whole bed shake, but she just seemed to not care about anything except my dick inside of her. She kept going for what felt like hours, but was probably only about ten minutes. Eventually she took me out of her and fell asleep on my shoulder.

As I looked over at her perfectly naked body, it finally occurred to me that I did not find her attractive at all. I mean, I could appreciate that she was pretty, but I didn't feel an urge to stick my dick into her. In fact, I realised now that I had not enjoyed our sex at all. I pushed her away from me and sat up. Oh my god, I thought, I have just lost my virginity to a girl and now I'm… I'm... I began to franticly pace the room, pulling on my clothes as quick as I could. Oh god, I'm gay. The two words echoed round my head. I'm gay. I'm gay. I'm gay. I pushed open the door to meet Josh coming through it.

"Why the rush, dude?" he slurred.

"There's someone… there's a girl in there already." I stuttered.

I heard the girl shout "What's going on?" from inside, and Josh shouting back "Threesome!" but my brain was having trouble functioning. I'm gay. I'm gay.

I stumbled down the marble stairs and heard Josh shout "Slow down dude, don't you want some of this?" but again, my brain wasn't processing it. I'm gay. I'm gay. I'm gay. I fell into my car and fumbled with the keys in the ignition. I had to get home. I'm gay. I got lost but it didn't matter. I'm gay. I'm gay. I finally found our house and slammed the door open. I climbed the stairs to Mikey's room. I'm gay. As I opened the door, I was met by five pairs of eyes, Mikey's friends. I'm gay. I'm gay.

"Mikey… I-I-I-I need to talk to you. Its urgent." I'm gay. Mikey followed me downstairs into the TV room.

"What do you want Gerard?" he asked, looking a little bit angry, "I'm missing the good part of Buffy."

Should I tell him? Does he need to know? What will he say? Will he tell mom? I couldn't take the arguing in my head any longer so I just blurted out the two words that had been polluting my head for the last ten minutes.

"I'M GAY!" I almost shouted.

Mikey blinked. Then blinked again. He studied my face for any signs of a lie, or a joke. Then he nodded.

"I know," he whispered. I almost fell over. How could he know if I only just found out? He seemed to read my mind as he said, "I don't know how I knew, I just knew. Brother thing, I think. Its okay Gee. It really is. Its okay to be gay. I still love you." He reached over and hugged me, tight.

"I have to go now Gee, but I love you, okay?" He smiled at me, and I knew it wasn't a fake smile and it held no malice. He left the room and I heard him climb the stairs and open his door. I giggled. If Mikey still loves me, that's all that matters, right?

I kicked off my shoes and pulled my legs onto the couch. I was only starting to realise how drunk I really was. I closed my eyes and fell asleep almost instantly.

Through the open door of the kitchen, a dark haired boy stood with a glass of water in his hand and a twinkle in his hazel eyes.

"Gay," he said, liking the taste of the word on his tongue.

He moved towards the door of the kitchen and walked through the hall and up the stairs. He paused outside the door of Mikey's room, taking a sip from his glass of water, lip ring clinking on the glass.

"Join the club," he whispered, and pushed his way through the door with a smile.


	5. Just an Insult

I was shaken awake by Mikey at seven a.m. My head was pounding and my eyes felt like they were about to fall out of my head. So this is what a hangover feels like.

I grabbed a hold onto a couch cushion and used it to pull myself up into a sitting position. I sat forward in my chair, holding my head in my hands. Never again am I going out on a school night, I swore to myself. I used Mikey as a support and eventually stood up. Immediately I regretted it, feeling the bile raise slowly in my throat.

"Bathroom," I said, met with a confused look from both Mikey and my mom.

"Bathroom," I repeated, more forceful this time. Their faces remained blank.

Before I could repeat it a third time, I leaned over and threw up, coating all of the furniture and people within five metres of where I was.

"Gerard," my mom squealed, "first week of school and you have a tummy bug. I hope one of those boys last night didn't give you something."

I had no idea what she was talking about, but she didn't seem to notice. She fussed around me, wiping my face clean and getting me a glass of water. Mikey had remained silent and hovered stoically until our mom was out of earshot before he told me, "I said that you were playing video games all last night with me and the guys. I knew she'd freak if she thought you were drunk."

I gave Mikey a sincere smile and leaned back into the chair.

I stayed home from school that day, my activities ranging from toilet retching to coffee drinking and back to the toilet again. I decided that I was never, ever going to drink that much on one night again. I got a text from Josh at some point:

[i]That girl u brought home was amazing! Y were u in such a rush 2 leave her. Think u won the contest ;)[/i].

I sighed. Obviously I couldn't tell the guys I was gay; most people don't appreciate having gay friends.

I finally forced myself of the couch I'd been sitting on all day and stumbled downstairs to my room. I pulled out my paints and began scattering lines onto a canvas.

I used flesh tones, and before I realised it, the lines formed a face. I didn't know where I'd seen it, maybe in the nightclub. I took out my darker colours and painted in two striking hazel eyes and a messy black fringe. The face looked bare somehow, and I couldn't figure out why.

Although the face was perfectly formed, I still couldn't shake the feeling that something was missing.

For a while, I stared into the round, hazel eyes I had just created. It felt like they were staring right into my soul, warming me from the core of my being.

I left my easel and set about reading a comic I hadn't put away yet. I couldn't stop glancing over at the painting. As I read about someone getting their lip sliced open with a sword, it came to me. A lip ring. He needed a lip ring. I found the tiny tube of silver paint at the bottom of my paint box and applied a thin sliver to the boy's lip. Perfect. He was compete.

I stood back and admired my work. He was perfect. The most perfect being I had ever seen. His innocent eyes held a darker and mischievous shadow, and his mouth was plump and soft.

I laughed at myself, imagining myself kissing a painting. The whole time, he watched from his perch on the easel, his eyes following me around the room.

"You can stop looking at me like that," I said, "I'm gay, you know."

The next morning I was feeling slightly better and convinced my mom to let me go to school. She was reluctantly agreed and I drove Mikey to school. I sat in the car to observe people before I walked in - that weird kid from homeroom trudged up the sidewalk and then ran to catch up with Mikey. I wondered what was going on with the two of them. Mikey was my baby brother, and the guy looked like a seedy character. Mikey seemed happy enough to see him, and they walked into the school together. There was something strange about that kid, and I didn't like it.

I was so caught up in Mikey's social life that I didn't notice Josh and Ray stalk up behind me. They tapped my shoulder, giving me the shock of my life. "Hey!" I yelled, before realising who it was. They burst into hysterical laughter, apparently my face had been "the most hilarious thing ever, man." I laughed it off and walked into school with them. They hadn't mentioned Monday night and I was eager for it to stay that way.

First period was Biology, and I was paired with Ray, which made the class fun. He was really into music and we had a lot in common. It seemed I was paired with Ray for most classes, because our names were the last two on the alphabetical rota. However, some teachers had their own rotas according to averages, and for Advanced English I got paired with my total favourite person on this earth; that emo kid from homeroom.

Apparently his name was Frank Iero. Stupid name, if you asked me. Our assignment for the class was to write a paragraph on ourselves which we would then give to our partner. I wrote quite a brief paragraph, outlining as little about my past as possible and focusing mainly on the music I liked.

Frank, on the other hand, wrote several pages of illegible scrawling. I pointed it out to him that his writing was impossible to make out, and he replied with "Want me to give you milk and cookies, tuck you up and read it to you, bitch?"

I sighed. This kid was impossible. So instead of dwelling on his penmanship, I got right to the point that had been bugging me since the first day I'd met him.

"What's your fucking problem, and what do you want with my kid brother?"

He looked at me for a few seconds, as if he was shocked at what I had said to him.

"My fucking problem," he spat, "is people like you who judge everyone around them and act all fucking superior. And what's even more of a problem is that you are a fucking hypocrite. I don't have a fucking clue who your kid brother is, but whoever he is, I feel sorry for him having an idiotic fucking fag of a brother."

The bell went, and Frank picked up his books with a disgusted look and stormed off to his next class. I was stunned. He knew. Somehow, he knew I was gay. But how? Mikey wouldn't tell anyone, I trusted him, but he was the only person I'd told. Did it show? Did I look like a fag now? No, I couldn't. He couldn't. He couldn't know. He just used that as an insult. Just an insult.

My heart was in my throat and my breathing was rapid. I hadn't noticed that the classroom was empty until the English teacher suddenly appeared at my desk, asking me if I was alright. I mumbled a quick "I'm fine," and left the classroom as quick as possible, almost running. My next class was Art and I barely remembered my way, but somehow I managed to get there.

As I stumbled in the door, I noticed Ms Williams was talking to another student. They turned when they heard me coming in.

"Oh, hello Gerard. This is Frank, the other student in your class I mentioned."

Frank smirked at me from his desk, and I positioned myself as far away from him as possible, waiting for our assignment to be handed out.

"No actual drawing today boys, we're going to watch a short piece on an artist I like."

She glanced at both of us in turn, motioning towards a desk in the centre of the room.

"Well come on, you can hardly see from way out there."

I slowly moved myself to the desk she'd pointed out, keeping as close to the edge and as far away from Frank as possible. He obviously noticed this, and moved his things into the centre of the table and leaned as close to me as possible. He obviously enjoyed seeing me squirm.

As the opening shots of the video began to play, I tried to focus all of my senses on the screen, and not on the body that was practically on top of me. Words flashed up on the screen; "Caravaggio, the world's most famous homosexual painter." Today was just not my lucky day.

The video was short, but not short enough. Every time the word "gay" was mentioned, I fidgeted in my chair, which Frank found amusing. As the closing credits rolled, I felt his hot breath on my neck and heard him whisper breathily into my ear, "Gerard is [i]gay[/i]."

He rolled the word on his tongue, stretching it out and making it sound longer than it really was. I pushed him away from me and gave him a dirty look. He smirked again, seeming pleased with himself.

"Well boys, did you enjoy that piece?" Ms Williams asked.

I looked down, and Frank answered; "I really did Miss. Maybe we could study him a little more in depth?" I glared at him. "I particularly like his painting "St. John the Baptist with a Ram", maybe you could bring in a copy to show Gerard?" He leered at me.

"That's a fantastic idea Frank, I had no idea you liked Caravaggio! That painting is one of the most fabulous examples of a male nude in existence," she said happily. Of course, the bastard wanted to study a male nude. She handed us a worksheet for homework and said we could get started immediately. I finished my sheet before the end of class and began to pack up my things. She dismissed us early, and I made a bolt for the door, but Frank got there first, pushing through the door and pulling me with him. He pinned me to the wall outside the door, and for once, I was glad the art room had a private stairs.

"Did you enjoy that Gerard? Enjoy learning about faggot painters?" he whispered.

He was quite a bit shorter than me, but he had outstanding strength for his size. I could feel his hot breath tickling my neck. He moved his head closer to me, so close I could smell him and feel his soft hair brushing against my face.

Suddenly I could feel something cold and metallic touching me where his breath had been just before. I swallowed. I knew he was a creep but I did not expect him to pull a knife on me. The smooth metal was gone as soon as it had come, and I found myself looking into his eyes, noticing how beautiful the hazel colour of them was.

We were face to face, both breathing heavily and I saw him lean in again. I leaned in too, and our lips were so close they were almost touching. I closed my eyes and opened my mouth, but jumped when the bell rang and interrupted the moment. Frank froze and loosened his grip on me enough for me to be able to slip away. I ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time until I reached the top. He was right behind me, and gave me a shove into the hallway.

"Watch your back," he said quietly, "people don't like fags at this school."

And with that, he was gone.


	6. Surprise, surprise

I was left in shock for the remainder of the day. Frank's actions, and more importantly, his words, had stunned me. There was no way that he could be straight. Most dudes wouldn't lean to kiss another dude if they were straight, right? I couldn't get him out of my head, and even found myself doodling his name into the back of my notebooks like a 13 year old girl.

Frank seemed to have hated me from day one, yet I still held onto that moment by the stairs.

The day flew by, and I soon found myself waiting anxiously in the car for Mikey to arrive. It was a short drive home, less than ten minutes, but I had my mind set on getting as much information as possible out of him about Frank.

I saw his familiar face bob out of the school's main door, followed closely by a dark haired girl I didn't recognise. He paused a few metres away from the car, fumbling in his pocket for something while she watched with an expectant look on her face. He eventually fished out his phone and handed it to her, accepting hers and keying in what must be his number. They gave each other back their phones and said farewell. Mikey resembled a happy baby rabbit as he bounced back to the car and sat in.

"I-I think she wants to go out with me," he said hesitantly, but he was beaming all the same.

"Her name's Alicia, she likes punk rock, she plays guitar and she's like, the coolest person ever!" he gushed.

He babbled about her the whole way home, and I usually wouldn't have listened to that kind of shit but he seemed so genuinely happy that I let him. He interruped every time I tried to ask him about Frank, apparently whatever I'd said reminded him of something else wonderful about Alicia.

I really needed someone to talk to about this. Mikey would be no use, I couldn't really tell my new friends I was gay and the only other people in my life were my mom and my grandma, but the latter lived too far away and I wasn't ready to tell my mom yet.

I retreated to my room immediately and spent almost the whole afternoon down there, thinking. I emerged only for dinner, and managed to single-handedly make it as uncomfortable as possible. My mom noticed that I was quieter than usual , and after I'd left the dinner table, she followed me downstairs to my room.

I slammed the door behind me, hoping that she'd take the hint and realise that I wanted to be left alone. She didn't.

She opened the door a fraction and knocked.

"Gerard honey, can I come in?" she called.

"No."

Apparently the woman didn't understand English because she came in anyways, closing the door softly behind her. She sat herself down on the bed beside me.

"Its very tidy in here," she remarked.

I nodded, making a noncommital sound. She always did that. Made small talk before getting down to what she really wanted to know.

"Gee, baby, I know there's something bugging you." She paused for a beat. "Is it school? Are you being bullied again?"

I frowned.

"No mom, nothing like that."

"Like that? So something is bothering you?"

Damn it, that woman was some kind of word magician. She always knew how to twist my words.

"No, mom, really. I'm… fine." I insisted.

"But see, my Spidey senses are tingling and I know when there's something wrong with my boy." she said jokingly, touching my arm.

I let a laugh escape my mouth. There was a silence lasting a few minutes, and I glanced over at my mom, her face a mask of misunderstanding.

"Gerard, what happened to the little boy who used to tell me everything? The little boy who came running to me to show me his first stubble? The little boy who cried watching Mikey get a booster shot? What happened to him Gerard? Where is he?" She looked at me for a second, and then whispered, "because I want him back."

She got up off my bed and walked towards my door, stopping to look back at me and shake her head sadly. She left, closing the door behind her. I heard her sigh outside the door, and take her first step upstairs.

I leapt off my bed and flung the door open.

"Mom," I called after her.

She paused mid-step and turned around.

"What, Gerard?" she snapped.

"Come back," I murmured, "please."

She paused for a minute, and them turned around and retraced her steps, back to my bed, where she waited until I closed the door and joined her.

"I hope I didn't come back here to be sent back out the door again," she said sternly, but I could see the worry in her eyes.

"Mom, I need you to understand," I began, "that I only discovered this a few days ago."

She made an encouraging gesture and I continued. "And I-I-I… I wanted to tell you, but I just didn't know how. I still don't know how."

I raised my eyes from where I had glued them to the floor, and swallowed. My hands were shaking, and my mom's were too.

"I'm… I'm… I'm gay, mom."

My mom froze, staring into my eyes with the same look Mikey had given me; searching for any sign of a lie or a joke. She found none, and all of her muscles relaxed. She let out a sigh, and reached over to hug me.

Her warm arms engulfed me, but all I could feel was a coldness growing inside me. She still hadn't said anything.

She broke our hug, holding on to my shoulders and staring into my eyes.

"Don't ever get me worried over something so small again."

She stood up and began to leave the room.

"Small?" I squeaked, "small?"

"Do you know how much courage it took for me to say that to you?" I asked incredulously.

"Don't be silly Gerard. You know I'll always love and support you, no matter what. I tell you ever day. You knew I'd be okay with it. Have you told Mikey?"

"Yeah, I told him earlier." I replied weakly, still a little stunned.

"Good." she said. "I love you Gerard, forever and always."

She smiled at me, and left my room.


	7. Demolition Lovers

I glanced over at the clock, the LEDs telling me it was six thirty. I decided I was going to get up off my lazy ass and make my way into town to explore.

I climbed my basement stairs and then the stairs to Mikey's room. I popped my head in the door, where I saw him sprawled on his bed with his two legs in the air.

"Hey Mikey, do you wanna…"

He cut me off with a hissed "be quiet", and pointed at the phone in his hand which I'd failed to notice earlier.

"Alicia," he mouthed.

I smiled, glad that Mikey had found someone who liked him so quickly. I was doubtful that I'd find a gay guy in this town who liked the Misfits and art.

I closed the door again and plodded down the stairs to our kitchen. I rooted around the cupboards until I found a travel flask, and poured myself out some coffee. Well at least I know coffee will never get a girlfriend and abandon me.

I carefully picked up my flask and grabbed my keys from the table beside the front door. I called out a goodbye to mom, and left the house.

I clicked the car doors unlocked and sat in, putting the keys in the ignition and turning them. I placed my coffee in the cup holder, and twiddled with the radio knobs until it started blasting my Queen CD from the sound system.

I pulled into a parking lot outside a hardware store and fished my chunky black Nokia out of the glove compartment. I keyed in a text and sent it to Josh.

[i]U free to come in 2 town? I'm in the hardware store lot.[/i]

Almost immediately my phone beeped with a reply.

[i]On my way. Taylor's coming 2.[/i]

I sat, listening to Queen and watching the people go in and out of the store until I heard a tapping on the passenger side window. Josh opened the front door and sat in the passenger seat, and Taylor took the back. Josh turned down the volume of the music and said "So what did you drag us away from very important GameCube duties for?"

I heard a British twang to his accent that I hadn't noticed before.

"Well, um, I've been here nearly a week and I never went exploring…" I mused, trailing off.

"And you want us to show you the sights." Taylor finished.

"Dude, you should have said so earlier." Josh chirped, "Swap seats man, I'm gonna take you on a magical mystery tour."

I reluctantly got out of the car and sat into the passenger seat, still warm from Josh. He sat into the driver's seat and took a deep exaggerated breath, as if bracing himself. He shrieked in excitement as the engine roared to life.

"You… have a license, right?" I said unsurely.

"Got it three weeks ago," Josh said, a sparkle in his eyes as he pulled out of the lot.

He drove us to the end of the main street and cruised back down again, pointing out the stores and telling me which ones to avoid, which ones had cheap beer and which ones had sexy counter girls. I remained silent through all of this, nodding in appropriate places and feeling relieved that they still though I was straight.

Josh pointed at a greengrocer and began to tell a story.

"Okay, so a few weeks ago, me and Ray and Tay were having a… contest, like Monday night."

Taylor shuffled awkwardly in the back seat.

"And Tay got the girl who works behind the till in that store. She was so drunk, dude, totally hammered. Tay had her and she just went along with everything! And then he came back and told me he'd laid her, and that she was real good man."

I could see Taylor was still fidgeting in the back, pulling at his hoodie strings and fiddling with his phone.

"I wasn't getting any that night, so I went back to her and was like, I heard you laid my friend, and she was so pissed that she couldn't even remember fucking some dude like ten minutes ago. But I got her in the end." He laughed to himself. "So moral of the story, you want easy sex, get her drunk."

I laughed, and said "I'll keep that in mind."

I don't think Josh has ever thought about anything that isn't sex or alcohol. It's good to have a friend like that though, to keep you grounded.

I'd noticed that Taylor hadn't enjoyed the story telling at all, in fact, it seemed painful to him. I promised myself I was going to ask him what was up later, when I got him alone. I changed the subject to music, and he seemed relieved, shooting me a grateful look.

The 'magical mystery tour' went quite well. Josh showed me all the main social meeting places in the town, and even took us down a little side street to the football pitch and basketball court.

"Even if you're like me, not into sports, the games that go on here are pretty fun to watch. Always hot chicks here." he grinned.

Of course.

After we'd cruised for about an hour, Josh handed the car back to me and I dropped him home. I tried to get Taylor to take my ride home but he wanted to walk.

"It's only a few blocks down," he insisted.

I said goodbye to them both and that I'd see them at school tomorrow. I'd originally intended to drive straight home, but decided to continue on into Overton. I texted my mom, telling her I was going exploring, and I would be late home. I wanted to try and find a record store to buy the new Green Day album that Ray had been talking about in Chemistry earlier that day.

I parked my car, locked it and made my way onto the streets of Overton. It reminded me a lot of Jersey, with the smells of car fumes and industrial smoke twirling their way up your nostrils and infecting your lungs. But I didn't mind, in fact I liked it. It was a smell that reminded me of one of the good things about home.

I found three record stores in total, but it was only when I searched the third one that I was able to find the record I was looking for, called Dookie. The dude at the counter also recommended I pick up an EP by this new band called Blink-182. It was only five bucks, so I did.

I began the walk back to where I'd parked my car, feeling very pleased with myself and eager to listen to my new music. I pulled my hood up and tugged my hoodie closer around me. It was pretty cold out.

I was thinking about a new drawing I wanted to begin work on, one of a couple making out as they both got shot in the heads. It was going to be pretty gory but it would be awesome.

I was pulled from my thoughts by the sound of deep male voices coming from an alley I was passing. I couldn't hear their exact conversation but I heard the words "fag," "asshole", "disgusting" and "boyfriend." I fully intended on walking on by and not causing a scene, but I couldn't help glancing over to them, instantly stopping in my tracks when I saw who was being harassed.

It was Frank.

He caught my eye and held my gaze for a second or two. It was as if there was lightening crackling through the air between us. I felt these sparks deep inside of me and the only thing my heart was telling me to do was run. Run to Frank. Save him. But my brain had other ideas. It turned me and hid me behind a rubbish skip.

"What are you looking at, fag face? Your boyfriend isn't coming to save you." snarled the leader of the group.

The rest of them, three in total, sniggered delightedly at his comment. Four versus one. Or four versus two. I didn't like the odds.

I heard a grunt, and looked up to see that one of the quieter ones had thrown a punch at Frank, connecting with a painful thud.

Frank didn't try to fight back or even defend himself. He just stood there and took it with a defiant look on his face.

Another stepped in, punching Frank in the shoulder, knocking him to the ground. His fall was taken as a signal for the other two to join in , and they began brutally kicking Frank, his face, his back, his legs, his stomach, his crotch, his chest…

The entire time, Frank remained still, his eyes lightly closed and his arms by his side.

The largest of the group signalled for them to stop, leaning down and picking Frank up by his hair.

"Don't you ever fucking talk to us like that again, you hear?" he spat.

"Cunt," Frank mumbled through his split and swollen lip, earning a smile from me. He still wasn't going to give in.

"Fuck you!" the leader roared, throwing Frank down.

He hit the ground hard, and I heard a bone crack with a sickening crunch.

The group moved to leave, and I thought that they were gone. I stumbled out to where Frank was lying, blood seeping onto the concrete. He was so messed up.

"Oh God, oh God…" I repeated franticly, unsure of what to.

I began to fuss over him, afraid to touch him in case I made him any worse. He needed to get to a hospital, pronto. I was about to call 911 when I heard a shout.

"What do we have here? Another little faggot?"

I turned to see that the group had returned. They backed me into a wall before I had a chance to escape. My heart was beating like a snare drum and my whole body was trembling. I had never been so fucking scared in my life, and I was even more terrified I was going to wet myself. I saw Frank's lips move, forming words, but the sound of rushing blood was so loud in my ears that I couldn't hear anything above it.

One of them grabbed me and slammed me against the same bin I'd been hiding behind, another reaching in to punch me. I was hit right in the eye, and I fell to the ground. All that I felt for the next minute or so, was searing pain, pulsing through every cell of my body as I was beaten to oblivion.

My mind was just starting to go blank as an ear piercing scream echoed through the air. It sounded guttural, almost animal like. I felt a gust of wind, and heard the sound of several soft masses hitting the tarmac with a thud.

"I told you not to fucking touch him." someone growled.

I felt a shadow cover my face, and I grimaced, waiting for the next blow to land. It never did.

"Hey, don't be scared, it's only me."

I opened my eyes to see Frank's strangely perfect face looking down at me. And by perfect, I mean: perfect. His skin was smooth, airbrushed even, his lips were plump, definitely not split, and his eyes were piercing hazel. The beaten-to-a-pulp Frank I'd seen under a minute ago was gone, and in his place, this immaculate human being.

"Your… Your face, your whole body, it was all shitty… and now it's…" I whispered hoarsely, shaking my head in disbelief.

"Hush," Frank whispered, placing a finger on my lips, "I'm the last of my worries. All I care about right now is you."

He gently touched all of my wounds, with the lightest touch. Instead of hurting, it kind of tingled, like there was some kind of energy passing between us. He touched my neck, in the place he'd touched it with his breath earlier on that day, and I shivered.

"Did I hurt you?" he murmured, sounding genuinely concerned.

"No," I breathed, "no…"

I freed my hands from underneath me and pushed myself upwards until I was sitting on the ground beside where Frank was kneeling. I wavered and his hands sprung out to catch me. We sat there, him holding me and just staring into each other's eyes. I noticed he had a lip ring.

Frank jerked suddenly, standing up and beginning to pace in circles. My eyes followed him and he noticed me watching him. He gave me a look, as if to say "What?"

"I kind of can't get up by myself…"

"Oh right, of course!" he exclaimed, and ran over to help me up.

When our hands touched, this time I was sure I felt something. Sparks flying or something equally sappy.

I leaned on him, feeling surprisingly good for someone who'd just been bet up. Once I was standing, Frank went and stood with his back against the wall of a building, putting his hands in his jacket pockets and kicking a stone with his foot.

I walked over and joined him, mimicking his body movements. He noticed and said, "Stop copying me, you freak!"

I knew he didn't mean it and so I didn't stop. In fact, I made my copying even more obvious.

"Seriously, I'm going to start copying you now!" he joked.

"Great!" I said, making jazz hands and stepping a jazz square, and laughing as he copied.

I don't know why I did it, but some instinct or gut feeling deep inside me moved my hand to his face. He flinched when I touched him, but he kept his side of the game and shyly placed his hand on my face.

"My turn," he whispered, his voice so quiet that I barely heard him. He cupped my face in his two hands and pulled it down to his. He paused, as if looking for permission, and then closed the gap between my lips and his.

Whatever I'd felt when our eyes met or our hands touched, nothing compared to this. It felt like my whole body was consumed in white fire, pure and clean and oh-so good. It just felt so right, like the primal, natural progression of what had been happening between the two of us.

Frank put his arms around my neck, and I responded by putting my hands on his waist, joining them behind his back. All I could taste was Frank. All I could smell was Frank. All I could see was Frank. All I could feel was Frank. All I could sense was Frank, with the sound of a bustling city in the background.

I don't know how long our kiss lasted, but however long it was, it wasn't long enough. His arms dropped from my neck and his lips parted from mine. I didn't take my arms from around his waist and we just stood, looking at each other for a few minutes. This was the best moment of my life.

Frank stood on the tips of his toes, planting a kiss on my cheek and stumbled off towards the top of the alley. I watched him turn left, but saw him cross the street and turn right again. He soon disappeared out of sight.

I just stood there, the taste of Frank still on my lips, and watched the world go by.

I somehow managed to get back to my car, almost tripping over the four bodies that were scattered across the ground. I still had no idea how Frank had done that, or how he was suddenly so perfect again, but my mind wasn't worried about that. All I could think about was Frank's beautiful eyes, his perfect little nose, pierced with a ring of metal on the right side, and his lips. His perfect little lips that had been one with mine such a short time ago.

I pushed my new CD into the radio, and it began to pump out punk music. I happily let myself fall into a daze, until the lyrics of the eleventh song caught my attention.

[i]Seventeen and strung out on confusion Trapped inside a roll of disillusion I found out what it takes to be a man Now mom and dad will never collecting dust but never forget Skeletons come to life in my closet I found out what it takes to be a man Now mom and dad will never understand What's happening to and coming clean for the first time I finally figured out myself for the first time I found out what it takes to be a man Now mom and dad will never understand What's happened to me. [/i]

The lyrics touched my heart because I realised that this song put to words everything I'd been feeling for the last few days. I was seventeen, confused about what I was. I was afraid of mom's reaction to me coming out. I'd lost my virginity to a girl. I'd forced myself to keep it a secret. But at the end of it all, I'd told her and Mikey, and now I felt content.

I pressed repeat and before I'd reached home, I knew the words off by heart and they had become a never ending echo around my skull.

It was after midnight when I pushed open the front door, but I didn't really care. My mom was in the kitchen, reading a book, and she looked up and smiled when I came in.

"Have fun?" she asked.

"Yeah," I replied, grinning dumbly.

She could never even begin to understand.

"Buy anything nice?"

"Yeah, two new records." I responded.

I was already tiring of this conversation, and mom knew it. She bid me goodnight and pottered off to bed.

I followed her, descending down the stairs to my room and shutting the door quietly. I shrugged off my clothes and climbed into bed wearing nothing but my boxers. I didn't usually sleep like this, I'm a pyjamas sort of guy, but I was just so tired that I was oblivious. As I reached over to turn off the light, the canvas with the painting of a face caught my attention. Because it wasn't just any face. It was Frank.

I don't know how I didn't realise it before, but I now recognised it because I had looked into those eyes and tasted those lips.

I had to get up and look at it. I couldn't believe my hands had created this- this masterpiece. I stumbled into the bathroom, looking for brushes I'd left soaking, and glanced at my reflection.

I nearly jumped out of my skin.

My face was flawless. Angelic, even. The skin that I'd expected to be bruised and broken was smooth and perfect. I realised I'd totally forgotten about the beating because of Frank's kiss. But I remembered one thing; it was brutal.

Then I remembered how Frank's face was perfect too. And how he'd touched my face, fingers brushing over all of my wounds…

No. I shook my head, trying to lose my thoughts. Frank hadn't done this. It obviously just hadn't been as bad of a beating as I'd thought. The bruises would probably be up in the morning.

I left the bathroom, plonking myself back onto my bed. I flicked the light off, my mind flooded with images of Frank. It was only when a memory of Frank using his tongue to twist his lip ring that something occurred to me.

That had been the most passionate and energy filled kiss of my life, and we hadn't even used tongue.

It's funny the things you remember.


	8. Black Holes and Revelations

The next morning I was dragged from Frank filled dreams by the annoying din of my alarm clock.

I groaned but had no trouble getting up, knowing that I'd see Frank in school. Mikey was in a good mood too, the reason being he was taking Alicia to the movies that night.

I hadn't told anyone about my encounter with Frank. I'd only just come out to them, I didn't want to land a potential boyfriend on them so soon.

[i]Boyfriend[/i].

Just imagining Frank as my boyfriend was enough to make me break out into a fully fledged grin.

"What are you smiling at?" Mikey asked, drawing me from my thoughts.

"Nothing," I replied, but the smile didn't leave my face until I walked into my first class to find that Frank wasn't at school.

"Hmm, it's a little annoying that Frank has decided he's not going to join us today," Ms. Williams said, "I'd been looking forward to starting work on Caravaggio with y'all."

She frowned, so now her expression matched mine.

"You're looking a bit down today Gerard. What's up?"

"Oh nothing," I said dismissively, "I just wanted to see Frank."

"Really?" She sounded surprised. "I didn't think you two exactly hit it off yesterday."

"I know, but something happened since then." I sighed. "I just really need to talk to him."

"Something happened, huh?" She wiggled her eyebrows, dyed orange to match her hair. "What kind of something?"

I sighed again. I couldn't tell Ms. Williams the events of the night before, she was my teacher for fuck's sake. But there was just something about her, something I couldn't put my finger on, that made me trust her and want to spill my guts to her.

"It was…" I began, "It was… nothing. Never mind" I said, turning my head away from her and focusing on the handout of a painting I'd been given. Frank and Ms. Williams were right, it was a spectacular piece of work.

"Oh now come on," she exclaimed, "you can't just start a story, get all my hopes up and then not tell it!"

She reached out and touched my hand, giving me a sincere look.

"Gerard, if something's on your mind that's worrying you, you know you can tell me right? I know I've only known you a few days, but you can trust me. I won't tell a soul." she paused, "…unless it's murder."

Her last comment made me laugh.

"I can assure you that I have not committed a homicide." I giggled.

"Well then come on, tell me what is on your mind, and what's going on between you and Frank."

I couldn't hold it in anymore. I was shit with secrets. So I turned to face her and told her everything, pretty much my whole life story. From being overweight and being bullied for being fat, to losing the weight, being bulimic and being bullied for being thin, to learning to sing, and being bullied because people didn't like my voice, to losing myself in art and being too afraid to show it off in case I was bullied, and eventually to moving here and discovering I was gay. I left out the sex part, and I was planning on leaving out the Frank part too.

"So I'm still lost as to what happened with Frank."

This woman reminded me so much of my mother, there was no way to fool her.

So I told her an edited version of the night with Frank, leaving out the part about getting bet up because I still had no explanation as to how we were both magically healed. I couldn't help but to laugh when she squealed as I told her about the kiss.

"Oh that is so romantic! All you need is rain and that could have been a scene out of a movie." she chuckled, "You guys would be adorable together."

Her words shocked me.

"What?" I blurted. "Together? You think Frank would want to be with me?"

"Why not? I've known Frank a long time, he doesn't just kiss people he doesn't care about."

"But… but… he was just so horrible to me the last few days!"

"Elementary school technique. If you like them, be mean to them to get their attention." she said, winking.

"You think so?" I asked, eyes wide.

"I know so. Frank is a lonely kid, people pick on him a lot." she said, smiling sadly. "He needs someone like you to make him happy, and obviously he'd make you happy too."

The bell went, and I began to gather my things. I hadn't drawn or learned anything in this class, but I felt it was more productive than any other class I'd ever had in this school. I thanked Ms. Williams on the way out.

"Any time, Gerard, any time."

I climbed the stairs and continued on to my next class. It was supposed to be Gym, but I wasn't doing it that week. I'd hurt my back unpacking boxes and mom had given me a chiropractors note.

I'd intended on spending the class sketching different parts of Frank into my sketchbook. First his eyes, then his hair, then his lips, his hands…

"Whoa, those are really good."

I was pulled from my thoughts by Taylor, who'd come to join me sitting on the bleachers.

"You not doing Gym?" I asked.

"Nope, I fill my Gym requirements on the basketball team" he replied.

We both went silent and I returned to my drawings.

"So… who is that?" he enquired.

"Just someone."

I wasn't eager to make conversation, but Taylor obviously was. He continued trying to spark off a conversation, but in the end I just cut him off.

"Tay, what do you want?" I said, not feeling like making small talk.

"Erm, nothing, it's just…" he said reluctantly, fidgeting and looking away.

"Taylor, just say it!"

"Okay!" He sighed. "So I was at the top of the art room stairs yesterday, because I wanted to get some paint from Ms. Williams for a banner for the b-ball team. And I looked down, and I saw you… like making out or something with that Iero kid. And now you're like, drawing him. Are you… Are you like… Do you like…"

He trailed off, but I understood what he was implying. How had I thought nobody would see us? I wanted to point out that we hadn't actually kissed at that stage, but I felt now was not a good time to add that into the mix.

"I'm gay, alright? That answer your questions?"

I began to worry in my head. Surely if Taylor had figured it out, someone else had too. I groaned and pushed away from where he was sitting. He didn't come near me for a while after that. I got back into my drawing and barely noticed Taylor's presence as he slid over the seat.

"I didn't mean to make you mad," he whispered. He was now sitting right next to me, our thighs touching.

"I-I just wanted to find out." He swallowed. "Because I think… I think I am too."

My head shot up from my sketchbook.

"Wh-What?" I stuttered.

"You can't tell anyone, you hear? Not even the guys. I haven't even told my mom yet. Fuck, I have a girlfriend too and I don't know how I'm going to explain this to her."

His head fell to his hands, his long, curly, brown hair falling in his face. I saw him shake a few times, and I realised he was crying.

"This is so fucked up dude," he managed to say in between sobs, "I don't know what to do."

I put my arm around him, not really sure what else to do, squeezing his arm and giving him a gentle shake.

"It's going to be okay. But come on, here's not the best place to do this."

Look at me, acting all calm and cool. A bit ironic, considering I only came out yesterday.

The bell went and he sat up, nodding.

"You're right dude. Can you come over to my house after school? I-I need to take my mind off this, we could play GameCube or something."

"Sure," I said, smiling. "I have to give my brother and his could-be girlfriend a ride to the movies first, but we can go to yours straight after."

"Great," he said, looking much happier now. "I'll see you later."

Nothing else major happened that day. I talked to Ray in Biology, and later Spanish, about the new Green Day CD, and also the EP I'd bought, which Ray was eager to borrow. I promised I'd bring it in for him tomorrow and let him keep it for the weekend.

Once the day's final bell had rang, I went to my locker and grabbed my Poetry book. We had a poetry project due on Monday, and since my partner was a no-show, I guessed I'd have to do it myself. I locked my locker and joined the stream of people flowing towards the exit.

I met Mikey, Alicia and Taylor by the car, and they seemed to have hit it off. Apparently, Taylor and Alicia already knew each other quite well, they used to play in a band together. Mikey and Taylor had a lot in common too, so they took the back seat and I was left with Alicia in the front.

I was a little unsure of what to say, she came across as a girl who took no shit. However, her personality totally didn't match her appearance. She was quite shy, but bubbly at the same time. It was kind of creepy, she was like the female version of Mikey. She opened the glove compartment, browsing through my CD collection and making light conversation about music. She had good taste, a little more hardcore than me but she appreciated the classics like Queen and Bowie. She stuck one of my Beatles tapes into the sound system and we sung along to it together, Mikey and Taylor joining in for an encore of Band on the Run. I could see why Mikey liked her, she really was a lovely girl.

We dropped Mikey and Alicia off at the movies and I offered to collect them, but they said they'd get a cab. I'm sort of glad they did, I'm happy for Mikey and all but I was not going to endure a make-out session in the back of my car.

Taylor came and sat shotgun when Alicia was gone, and I made a special effort to keep the conversation away from sexual preferences. Despite this, it still ended up there.

"So, what made you, um, turn?" Taylor said awkwardly.

"I dunno. Just realising that being with girls didn't turn me on I suppose."

I shrugged. I wasn't going to tell him that one of his games that was the cause.

"What about you? You said you had a girlfriend, right?"

He nodded.

"I suppose I've always known. That's how I met Josh you know. I tried to kiss him in kindergarten and he thought I was wrestling." He sighed deeply.

"I really thought getting a girlfriend would make me come to my senses, you know? I'm in a band and I'm a jock so I could pretty much get any girl I want. My girlfriend is amazing. She's called Charla and she's got blue hair and she's a cheerleader… and she's just so nice and I do love her, but like a sister, not anything more."

I could see he was getting emotional again and I was glad we had reached his house. I got out of the car as quick as possible and offered him my hand to get out of the car. He took it, and once we were standing he pulled me into a bone crushing hug.

I felt him shudder as he cried into my shoulder, and I really felt sorry for him. The guy was such a wreck just because society said it was wrong for two guys to date. I rubbed his back supportively until his sobs had slowed down and eventually disappeared. I peeled him off me and coaxed him inside. I met his mom inside, and I introduced myself while Taylor went to the bathroom to clean himself up.

When he came out and his mom saw his blotchy cheeks and red eyes, she was worried and immediately shot over to him.

"It's nothing mom, really, just hay fever. There were some dudes trimming trees on the way here and it totally sparked up my symptoms." He sneezed for effect.

"Oh, my poor Taydy bear!"

I struggled to contain a laugh, eventually letting it out but disguised in a cough.

His mom got him anti-histamines from a cupboard and gave them to him with a glass of water. He took them and she ushered us upstairs to the safety of Taylor's bedroom.

"Taydy bear? Really?" I said, raising an eyebrow.

"Shut up," he said, throwing a cushion from his sofa at me jokingly, "I was four when I thought of it and I truly thought it was the best nickname ever, okay?"

I laughed, and we settled into a night of video games.

Far away, somewhere on the outskirts of the city of Overton, a dark haired boy was being woken from his slumber by an older man. The room was pitch black except for the glow of a lava lamp which occupied a table next to the boy's bed, casting white and red shadows over the walls of the room. The older man was dressed in all black, with his bleached blonde hair spiked up down the centre.

"Wake up, you lazy fucker," the older man spat.

The dark haired boy said something undecipherable, due to his head being buried in his pillow.

The older man picked him up by his shirt and dropped him on the floor.

"Get dressed," he said, "we haven't got time for these games."

"Jared, I need time to regain power." the boy insisted, his voice still thick with sleep, "I used up way more than I intended on using last night."

"Not my problem. You're in this legion, you don't have a choice, you have to do what you promised to do."

"Please, be cool for once and let me off for tonight. I can barely stand up."

Suddenly, the man's pupils began to glow blue and the dark haired boy was lifted from the ground, levitating in mid-air. Light began to pulse through his veins and he writhed in pain. His screams echoed around the room, but no one else was there to hear him except the man who was the source of his agony.

The glow faded from the man's eyes and the boy dropped from the air with a thud.

"You know the rules by this stage Frank. Do as I say, or you will be eliminated."

The boy clutched his stomach, evidently still in pain, and nodded.

"Good. Be ready in five minutes."

The man strode to the exit and walked out. He slammed the door shut, plunging the room and the dark haired boy's vision back into darkness, broken only by the gentle pulsing of the lava lamp.


	9. All We Know is Falling

Frank:

I've always known I was different. For as long as I can remember I've always been special. I was walking at six months, talking properly before I was two, reading and writing before I was even finished Kindergarten. People just thought I was a very advanced child, deep down, I knew it was something more.

The first time something especially extraordinary happened was on my second birthday. My mom had presented me with a cake, two candles glowing on top, but a gust of wind blew one out before I had the chance to. I was so angry, so I just kind of focused all my anger on the candle and it relit. Even with a simple, two year old brain, I could tell this wasn't normal.

By the age of ten, I could channel my power into almost anything. Mom's plant died? I could make it grow again with a touch. Didn't feel like heating soy milk for my cereal on the hob? I could make it boil with a glance. Didn't feel like going outside at recess? I could make it rain with a thought.

I'm sure nobody noticed these tiny things, but I was always paranoid somebody would.

Once I hit junior high I was barely using my powers for fear of being discovered. An odd rain shower here, the occasional flourishing of a plant, but only once every couple of months, maximum.

After enduring my first day of high school, I decided that I needed to get away. I dropped my bag inside my front door and ran as fast as I could to the park. I sat down in a secluded corner, getting my breath back while making a daisy bloom, and then die. It was a good way to pass the time while I thought about things.

I was so deep in my thoughts that I never noticed a man dressed in dark clothes walk up and stand behind me.

"That's a nice trick." he said, his voice void of any emotion.

I jumped from my position on the ground, squashing the daisy with my toe, and turned to face him. I'd been preparing for this day for years, but I'd hoped it would never come.

"What trick?"

I tried to sound calm and innocent like he had, but the words came out shaky and wrong.

"Oh Anthony, no need to play the fool here, I know what you are."

He smiled coldly at me.

"H-How do you know my name?" I stammered, silent dread hammering in my chest.

"We don't need to worry about things like that right now. Come with me."

"No." I replied instantly, but I soon realised that it wasn't a question. His eyes glowed blue and I felt my body stiffly move into action and follow him. It was like being paralysed, I fought against him, but he was just too powerful. I was walked into the back of a black van, and driven away.

I'm sure they searched for me. I'm sure my mom was heartbroken. I'm sure Charlie and Alex and Jack and all my school friends were devastated. The police surely got involved. But I'll never know.

We drove for several hours, and soon after the van stopped, I was tied up and blindfolded. I felt myself being lifted from my spot on the floor, and carried away. My body was strapped down, cool metal against my skin, and when my blindfold was removed I saw I was in some kind of operating theatre. They stripped me and searched me, checking that every part of me was in full working order. I tried to wriggle or make some noise, but the blonde man was doing his thing again and keeping me paralysed. A blue sheet was thrown over the bottom half of me and the man who'd examined me produced an extremely large needle. I braced myself, and felt the sting of it entering my right arm and a flow of something icy cold into my bloodstream.

Then, black.

I opened my eyes to see the fuzzy image of the man who'd kidnapped me peering down at me. Seeing his blank face after an eternity of black sparked off something inside of me and set me into a rage. I jumped from my bed and moved to punch him.

My body froze before I'd even lifted my hand. His eyes glowed a familiar blue and my whole body began to burn with the most intense pain I'd ever felt in my life. I felt my feet raise from the ground and heard my own gurgled screams echo around the bare walls, met with his cruel laughter.

The pain seemed to go on for an eternity, but eventually it stopped. I fell to the ground and curled up into a ball, rocking back and forth and sobbing quietly.

He dropped to his knees and looked at me, disgust and enjoyment evident in his eyes.

"Now you know what will happen if you ever try any funny business," he said calmly. "Stand up."

I scrambled upwards, not looking forward to more of the hell I'd just received.

He pointed to the bed I'd been in, where a pair of black trousers, a white cotton vest and some type of back garment rested.

"Put them on."

I quickly did as he said, pausing only when I reached the black... [i]thing[/i].

"I-I don't know what this is." I mumbled.

"Oh," he said, "I forgot about that. Lift up your arms."

I reluctantly did as he said, and he pulled the thing down over my head. It was soft, and warm, and had some kind of covering for my head.

"It's called a hoodie. I'll tell you more shortly. Follow me, and don't do anything stupid. No talking, no questions."

I nodded, and trailed him as he exited the room, and soon after, the building.

"Welcome to the future, Anthony."

I had to hold back a gasp when we got out onto the street. This was definitely Jersey, but it was not [i]my[/i] Jersey. It looked like something out of a movie.

He steered me down the street and into another black van, but this looked more like a spaceship than a motor vehicle.

Once inside, I was directed to a sofa that was built into the back compartment.

"I need your full attention here."

The man waved in my direction, distracting me from dazedly observing the interior of the vehicle.

"That's better. This is going to be very hard for you to understand, and we are very sorry for any pain or stress we have caused you. But you will soon find out that it was vital to your survival."

The van jerked to a stop, and another man stepped in, joining the other man on a sofa opposite me.

"My name is Jared, and this is Jeremy." he said, nodding towards the bearded man who had just stepped in.

"We are just like you. The same... [i]species[/i], if you like. We both have powers we discovered at an early age that were different to those of other children."

"We want you to know that we mean you no harm, in fact, we are trying to help you." Jeremy added quickly.

"People like us have an energy stored inside of us." Jared continued. "It grows and grows as we get older, and if we don't learn how to let it out correctly, it will eventually consume us and destroy us."

"This usually happens at around our fourteenth birthday. We understand that when we… found you, it was exactly a week from your fourteenth birthday. Is this correct?" Jared asked.

I nodded dumbly. I was finding it hard to process all this..

"Good," Jared nodded. "Jeremy is going to tell you the rest. I'll be seeing you later."

The van stopped again, and Jared jumped out.

"I'm very sorry about Jared," Jeremy said softly once the door had closed. "He can be very inconsiderate sometimes. But I warn you, he's the leader of our Legion and is not to be messed with."

"Do you understand that you have powers?"

I nodded.

"Have you learned how to control or channel them?"

"Kind of. I mean, I can make them do certain things, like boil water or bring a plant to life."

Jeremy nodded, taking out a grey leather bound notebook and beginning to write things down.

"I can't do any crazy stuff, like Jared. Mostly things to do with nature. But there is something else… may I borrow your pencil?"

Jeremy handed it to me.

"Dear lord," I murmured.

The pen was silver, made of metal, and had a strange looking nib. It was like nothing I had ever seen before.

"It's called a pen," Jeremy said, "you don't need ink or anything, the ink is inside."

I nodded, took a deep breath, and holding the pen in the air I plunged it deep into my calf, straight through my trousers.

Jeremy yelped and jumped to restrain me, but I stopped him and tried to get him to focus his attention on the wound.

"Watch," I said.

Slowly, the blood that was seeping from the hole stopped. Then the blood on my jeans began to disappear and the hole began to shimmer, as if there was light coming out of it. Then, very quickly, the glowing became a bright light and the rip in my trouser leg closed.

I pulled up my trousers to show that my skin was completely healed.

"Wow…" Jeremy whispered, "I have never seen anything like this before."

We plunged into silence, broken only by the scratching of Jeremy's other pen on the paper.

"Now, for the tough part." He let out a breath. "This may be very hard for you to understand, but we are not in the same world that you came from. What year is it?"

"1951." I answered immediately.

Jeremy hummed, and said, "The year right now is 1991."

"What?" I gasped, my eyes wide.

"You remember receiving an injection, right?"

I nodded again, my mouth hanging open.

"Well, that injection contained a fluid that would slowly eat away at your power source, the one we mentioned earlier. It has been chomping it down to a manageable level, so you can go back to being normal. There's only one downfall to this process; it takes forty years. You haven't aged, because the serum had locked your brain, not letting it perform any basic tasks, such as breathing, or ageing."

I looked at him doubtfully and he laughed.

"I know you think I'm mental, but surely you saw the city before you reached the van? And also, the van itself? It's going to take a bit of getting used to, but this is where your new life is. If we hadn't reached you, you would have literally disappeared off the face of the earth. This way, you've pretty much have done the same thing, but you are now able to live your life without the worry of exploding any time soon." He smiled warmly.

"Of course, there is a catch. You've heard me mention the Legion? Well that is what we call the group of people who we have saved. You will have to perform tasks with the Legion, mainly finding new candidates for recruiting. You will be taught how to recognise them, and it will only be very seldom."

"But first of all, we need to get you clued up on your new home. You won't be living in Jersey, for fear that someone will recognise you. You'll be going to Overton, a little city in between New York and New Jersey. It was actually my hometown, before… you know." He shook his head solemnly.

"Anyway, once you get there, we'll give you a place to live. Nothing fancy, mind, but not a dump. You're still young enough to go back to school if you want, but I'd recommend you wait until next year so you have some time to get used to everything. You'll be taking your middle name and your mother's maiden name as your own, making you Frank Iero. There are two golden rules."

His voice took on a darker, more serious tone, and I looked up at him.

"Firstly, don't ever tell anyone about this. Your existence is a scientific miracle, and I don't want you taken away from us for testing or the likes. Secondly, and this is the most important one," He paused and swallowed. "Don't fall in love."

"If you fall in love, you open up a part of your brain to let the person you've fallen in love with in. This is the same part of the brain that holds your powers. If you let them in, you also lose the protection that the serum has given you. You will fill up with power, and you will die. Do you hear me? You will die."

We both remained silent for a few awkward minutes.

"How can you stop love?" I asked eventually, my voice quiet and wavering.

Jeremy paused to think.

"There are two options. One; you fall in love with a dead person." He sighed, making me think that this was the option he chose.

"And the second, and most popular option; you become like Jared. Make yourself, well, unlovable."

"How?" I asked, a little gobsmacked.

Jeremy shrugged.

"I don't know. Be a dick. All the time. That's about it."

I didn't know what a "dick" was, but I got the idea it was bad.

"So just… be horrible the whole time? That's what I have to do now?" I felt tears welling up in my eyes. "I don't know if I can do that man! I didn't ask for this! I fall in love with someone if they so much as smile at me. I don't think I can be like that."

By then, I was full out crying. I hated Jared for taking me, I hated Jeremy for telling me, I hated me for being some kind of freak…

Jeremy had moved from his seat and was now by my side with his arm around my shoulder. He pulled me into a hug and rubbed my back soothingly, all the while murmuring, "Shhh, it's going to be okay Frank, I promise."

He obviously thought that repeating it was going to comfort me, but it didn't. By using my new name, it was just cementing the fact that it was never going to be okay again even deeper into my head.


	10. No One's Ever Who They're Meant to Be

The night at Taylor's had been a lot better than I'd expected. We didn't talk much, and if we did, I tried to keep it light. But of course, the conversation eventually spiralled downwards until we were back to square one.

"I don't know how I'm going to come out dude. My dad will go crazy. And I don't really know how Vail's gonna react…" He trailed off.

It was obvious he cared about his girlfriend, going on about their relationship, how they'd known each other since they were babies, how they'd always been best friends and they'd become a couple in the last year of middle school.

"I haven't talked to her since school started and she's getting suspicious…"

I nodded sympathetically.

"I'm not exactly an expert here. I mean, I only came out yesterday."

"After… uh, Iero?"

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat.

"Um, yeah… He was kind of the reason I came out."

"So, you two are like, dating, or something?"

"God no!" I exclaimed. "Well… I'm not really sure."

I shrugged, grabbing the game controller in hopes Taylor would get the message and end the conversation, but he grabbed it from my hand and waved it in front of my face.

"Be sure. Sure that you're not dating, I mean. Iero is trouble. He's a douche, and a bully, and just not nice. Not to mention the whole emo thing, but I'm not gonna go there."

I wouldn't meet his eyes and he sighed again.

"Gerard, if you want any chance of fitting in here, you need to keep away from him. He's bad news. Everyone hates him, and if you're with him, everyone will hate you."

"Believe me, people have tried to be his friend. There was this one girl in sophomore year who tried to start a conversation with him, and he said such horrible things to her that he left her seeing a shrink. Just be careful with him, okay? You're the only person I can talk to about my problems, and I don't want you left rocking back and forth in the corner of a psych ward."

I was kind of taken aback by what Taylor had said. I knew that Frank could be bitter but I didn't think he was that bad. I'd seen a totally new side to him yesterday and I wanted my memories of him to stay sweet. I shuddered.

"Thanks Tay. I'll try to watch out."

"No problem, dude." He said, tossing the controller back into my lap.

The played in silence well into the night, until Taylor's mom popped her head back in the door and said it was getting late and my mom was probably worried.

I thanked her for her hospitality and gave Taylor a warm hug before leaving their house.

Once on the highway back home, I pushed some Misfits into the sound system and blasted Green Hell until I reached my house. It was late and I didn't expect to see so many lights on. As I walked up to the front door, I was met by Alicia bursting out and running down our driveway and onto the street. She looked like she'd been crying, and I wanted to run after her but I didn't feel it was my place. Instead, I stepped inside and closed the door softly, eyebrows drawn in confusion.

I could hear a noise coming from our living room, and so I made my way in. Mikey was sitting on the floor with his back to me, and his whole body was shuddering with sobs.

"Mikey?" I said softly.

"Gerard, go away." he mumbled, in between snivels.

I knew Mikey, and with him, "go away" always meant "come over here and hug me". So I walked over to him and pulled him from the ground into a huge warm embrace.

He collapsed into me, and it was lucky that the couch was right behind me or I would have fallen flat on my back. I was thrown on the couch with Mikey in my arms as he bawled aimlessly into my chest, and although I was desperate to know what had happened, I knew it was pointless to ask with Mikey in this state.

We sat like that for hours, with Mikey against me, and me desperately trying to calm him down. When his whimpers stopped, I was about to question him on the night's events but found he was fast asleep on my shoulder. I pulled a blanket over from the armchair across from us, and together we fell asleep, just like we used to when we were kids.

She liked to observe. She saw the brother and his girlfriend enter the house. She saw the boy drive up and walk in after the girlfriend had left. She saw the boy comfort his brother, and later saw them fall asleep together on the couch.

She liked to observe. She was very good at observing. But she was better at killing.


	11. The Truth Lies Across This New Divide

Frank:

It took a long time to get used to. I mean, it's not every day you get catapulted into a different century. I was forced into a crash course on world news from the last forty years, along with figuring out how to work all the new inventions, and getting used to my new name and powers.

Jeremy taught me how to recognise people like us, and I was used in three recruiting missions between my recruitment and the next fall when I was due to reenter school. I would be entering the school as a freshman, and I'd taken on a new persona. There was no one in my past to love - I simply made myself unlovable to anyone in the future.

I dressed in all black, as was regulation of the Legion, but also regulation of the emo scene. They listened to terrible music, self harmed, and were depressed. Despite the fact that I was repulsed by the screaming music and was virtually unable to harm myself, being emo was a sure way to avoid love, living as a social reject. I enrolled in some acting lessons and they taught me how to act bitter all the time, just to avoid any chance of love from a fellow emo.

And so I became Frank the Emo, and by the next fall, Frank the Emo Fag because I made the mistake of having my eyes linger too long in the locker rooms. Life was pretty awful for the next few years, just going to school and doing work for the Legion.

I didn't exactly have a social life, but the first day of senior year I'd made a comment to some new junior, Mikey, about him looking like a bassist, and it spiked a conversation. He'd invited me to sleep over and play video games that evening, and I said yes out of sheer during the day I'd received a text from Jared during the day.[I]Considering you for rank promotion. Be at my apartment at 10pm.[/I]No smiley faces or slang like Jeremy. It was easy to see why nobody loved the asshole.

I went straight to Jared's apartment block after school, hoping he'd be home so I still had time to go to Mikey's. I knew Jared liked me to be early, but six hours may have been a bit presumptuous.

As I turned the corner to Jared's apartment block, I was almost knocked down by a man with long brown hair and a hat that only I knew was Jared from the blue glow surrounding his pupils. He was wearing a disguise and I had no idea why, but I was determined to find out.

I followed him as he barged his way down several blocks and ducked into a subway station. I always left a good gap between us, but never enough that he left my sight. I got onto his train and sat a few chairs down from him, with my hood up and a beanie pulled down around my face. He sat for at least seven stops, jumping up with very little warning, meaning I had to run to get out the doors in time.

He climbed the stairs to the street two at a time. I wasn't exactly fit and when I eventually reached the street, I was panting and angry at myself for losing sight of him.

I sat against a wall and frantically searched all around me, when I suddenly saw Jared queuing up in a coffee shop across the street. My heart leapt and I decided to buy a coffee too, to pass the time while I waited for him. I entered a smaller coffee shop opposite Jared's, never taking my eyes off him as the barista behind the counter made me up a mocha to go.

Jared left his store shortly before I did, but the streets weren't very busy here so I didn't need to stretch my neck to keep him in my sights. I noticed from the street signs that we had entered New York City, and Jared seemed much more relaxed here. As we entered residential streets, I was surprised to see people recognise him, smiling and waving socially, and was even more surprised to see Jared being social back.

After I'd been following him for about seven or eight minutes, Jared took an abrupt left turn down a picturesque little cul-de-sac and stopped outside a red-brick house with ivy growing up the walls and a white picket fence. There was a telephone box a couple of feet away from it, so I dashed inside and picked up the receiver, all the while still watching Jared's every move.

He swung the gate open and didn't close it, strolling up the path to the front door, which was painted white to match the fence. He stuck his hand into his pocket, pulling out a set of keys. He fumbled with them in his left hand, his coffee cup still occupying the other. He jiggled the keys in the lock and the door swung open.

I heard a squeal from inside the house and saw a tiny blonde haired boy run out and latch himself to Jared's leg.

"Daddy! Daddy! Daddy's home!"

A huge smile broke out on Jared's face and he spoke in a voice so full of emotion I barely recognised it.

"Hey there big man! How's Daddy's boy doing?"

He leaned down and picked up the child, ruffling his hair and spinning him around before placing him on his hip.

"Where's Mommy today?"

The child pointed a chubby finger inside the door. Jared laughed.

"Let's go find her then."

He picked up the coffee cup that he'd abandoned in favour of his child and slammed the door shut.

Daddy? Mommy? The cogs in my head were whirring franticly, trying to process all this information. I may have been born in 1937, but I wasn't a total idiot. In order to have a baby, you had to have sex. Sex was making love. Love was forbidden. Love destroys. Love kills. This was what I had been taught, and yet here was the man who had taught it to me, disguised and surrounded in love. The Legion, and all of it's crazy rules, were a lie.

When I'm stressed, I like to get high. Not in a drugs sense, but as in distance off the ground. The higher I am, the less I feel attached to the crazy world I'm living in. I become more of an observer and less of a living person. I tentatively stepped out of the telephone box and surveyed the area, seeing that the tallest thing in sight was the oak tree in Jared's front yard. I scaled the tree, using a bench to give me a boost. Once up there, surrounded by the green and slightly browning leaves, I started to feel better. I decided that all of this was Jared's doing. Jeremy was too hung up on the girl in his past to be lying, and all of the other leaders and officials seemed one hundred percent legit. Jared had always been the one who was trying too hard to be calm and cool. He was the one who was hiding something. He had to be.

The metallic click of a door opening disturbed my thoughts. I made a hole in the foliage to see where the noise came from, and was greeted by the sight of Jared and a dark haired woman walking out of a side door and towards my tree.

My heart was pounding in my chest. Surely Jared could sense me?

The couple came and sat in the wrought iron bench under the tree. I tried my hardest not to make any sound, but this was hard to do since they had decided to start kissing directly under me. It was disgusting. They had more of their tongues in each other's mouths than was in their own. I struggled to hold back horrified noises. I was repulsed by kissing, or what was referred to as kissing these days. In my time, a kiss was touching lips, not eating the other person's face. I'd never had my first kiss, and at this stage, I doubted I ever would.

"I hate it when you have to go away."

They had obviously surfaced from face sucking and were now facing each other. The woman spoke softly, and Jared played with the blonde streak in her hair.

"I know Sierra, baby. I hate it too. The office is just so understaffed now, they need me."

Office?

"I know Jared. As long as I know you're safe, that's all that matters."

She pecked him lightly on the lips.

"I hate leaving you and little Max all alone though. It breaks my heart that I'm missing all his milestones."

"That's what a camcorder's for babe." she smiled, "I love you, Jared."

"I love you too, Sierra."

I waited for the explosion. The flash of light and the sparks. The empty space where Jared had been sitting. But it never came. Because, as I was now assured of, the Legion was a fat load of bullshit.

They got up from the bench hand in hand and walked into the house. Once I was sure they were gone, I sprung down from the tree, landing perfectly because I had a lot of practice when it came to jumping from a height. I brushed myself off, and was just moving towards the gate when I heard a sound behind me. I turned to see Jared at his front door, mail in hand and eyes glued to me in a look I couldn't read. I didn't know how he would react, so I turned and ran.

I knew he was following me because I could feel him pushing at my senses with his powers, trying to get in, but for once, I had the courage to resist. I held him off, and even pushed back at him several times. I had something up on him now, and he knew it.

I reached a subway entrance and I jumped down the stairs in one clean movement, hitting the ground and rolling so as not to injure my ankles. I wasn't able to run as fast as Jared, but I knew that that would slow him down. I ran to the first platform I could find and just managed to get into a carriage before the doors closed. In that moment before the train moved, I saw Jared stumble onto the platform. We locked eyes for a split second, and in that second I saw something in his eyes that I'd never seen before; fear.

The train pulled away and we were in the next station in seconds. I swapped trains a few times and eventually ended up outside the house of that junior kid who'd invited me over. I decided I'd go in, and he and his friends actually seemed so happy to see me. They thought it was so awesome that a senior wanted to hang around with them, even though I still had no idea how I got invited.

I tried to get into the video games, but I was just so bad at them that I eventually gave up and sat back to watch them play. Hours later, the door burst open and someone who I guess must have been Mikey's brother stumbled drunkenly in. He wanted to talk to Mikey immediately, and Mikey followed him out. I couldn't get a good look at him from behind the door.

I left the room shortly after them and made my way down the stairs to the kitchen, my feet plodding quietly on the carpeted floor. I entered the open plan kitchen-living area without switching on the lights, the moonlight shining in the window was enough for me. I took a glass from the draining board and filled it from the sink silently. A muffled conversation drifted through the air towards me.

"What do you want Gerard? I'm missing the best part of Buffy."

That was Mikey, the kid who'd invited me. I crept over to get a better look. His brother, Gerard, I'm guessing, was extremely attractive. He had dark hair, high cheekbones and a cute little nose. I couldn't really make out much of his face in the dim light, but I decided that he was hot.

"I-I-I'm gay!"

Since I was quite young, I knew I preferred boys to girls. In my time, it just wasn't acceptable to be gay, but after waking up in the 90's, I was starting to embrace that part of me more. It was hard to get used to, but now I was beginning to. When Mikey left the room, I stepped out from where I was hiding, and let the word slide off my tongue.

"Gay."

I thought it sounded right. I winced as I heard a murmur and realised that Gerard was still in the living room, but he was so drunk that I doubted he heard me anyways. I backed out of the kitchen and climbed the stairs to Mikey's room, pausing outside his door to sip my water and affirm something in my mind.

Gerard was gay.

"Join the club."


	12. Red is the Rose on Your Coffin Door

Frank:

I decided to stay the night at Mikey's house. Well, less I decided and more Mikey's mom insisted. She seemed so happy for Mikey to have guests over that she pretty much dragged me from the front door to Mikey's bedroom and shoved me into a sleeping bag.

Mikey was pretty cool, for a junior. Between him and his brother, they had a kick-ass record collection, full of British bands and classics like Bowie and the Rolling Stones. Music was my only love, mainly because it was the only thing that couldn't love me back.

He had a guitar in his room, and I pulled it onto my lap, tuning it and playing some songs for the group of boys. They were very much in awe of me for the rest of the night, and that feeling was one I could get used to. Mikey told us a little bit about why he moved here, the main reasons being that his mom got promoted to a job here and that his brother was being bullied back in Jersey.

Once it got to midnight, Mikey's mom (or Donna, as she insisted on being called,) popped her head in the door and asked us to turn off the light as she didn't want us late for the second day of school. We did as she asked, and I fell asleep almost instantly.

I was shook awake by Mikey at six-thirty, and I dragged myself down to the kitchen for some coffee. Coffee was another thing I'd gotten into since waking up in this world, along with cigarettes.

Gerard was still asleep on the couch with his face stuffed into a pillow so I still couldn't see him properly. Even though six boys eating breakfast make quite a lot of noise, nothing seemed enough to wake him from his slumber. We eventually finished eating and left the house while Mikey tried to wake Gerard, and heard squeals from inside as we watched Gerard puke his guts out through the front window. I'd been looking forward to approaching Gerard at school that day, but he obviously wouldn't be going in that state.

Instead, I walked with the guys to school, and once they were out of sight, I turned around and walked back into the town of Monroeville and caught a bus home.

Overton is a nice enough city. It has everything you need within walking distance, and is still large enough to explore. But after living in it for four years, it was starting to lose its thrill.

I lived in a small apartment in a quiet part of the city. It had three rooms and no character. I was only allowed to have basic furniture, with no decorations of any kind, because the apartment belonged to the Legion. I was very good friends with Jeremy, an official, and so I managed to sneak in a CD player, a record player, a collection of records and 3 guitars, all of which I kept hidden in my bedroom. I had grown to love the apartment, mainly because it was the only place I felt that no one could get at me and where I was safe. However, on this occasion, I knew it was the one place I wouldn't be safe from Jared.

Jared probably expected me to go straight home after last night, and was most likely in my apartment right now waiting for me to get home. So I decided I'd have to take a detour to a friend's house.

I've known Demi since I first joined the Legion. She was an official when I woke up, and probably the only person I've ever met who understands me. She was tall, slim, with dark hair and tanned skin. I knew I could tell her anything without needing to worry about her judging me. I knew she would listen to my story, and I knew she'd try believe me.

I stood outside her door at just before eight in the morning, knocking and waiting. She wasn't answering and I was starting to worry that Jared had got to her. I should never have even considered it. The door creaked open and she peered out, looking bedraggled.

"Frank? What the fuck, it's the middle of the night," she said, her voice raspy with sleep.

"It's actually the middle of the morning," I replied, winking. "Now, are you going to ask me in or am I going to have to kick the door down?"

She stepped back, opening the door fully and curtseying. I laughed and entered her apartment, making a beeline to the kitchen, pouring us both a cup of coffee and sitting down beside her on the sofa where she was smoking. I plucked the cigarette from her mouth, taking a long drag before passing it back to her with her mug.

"So, Frankie darling, tell me what you have to say before I extract it from your brain." she said, exhaling a dense cloud of smoke.

"Well, Demetria darling, I'm not sure if you'll believe me…"

"Come on, honey, if I believed I was straight for my first fourteen years, I'm sure I can believe your story."

I took a deep breath, before telling her the events of the day before. She didn't look surprised at all when I told her about Jared's son, however she did look surprised when I started talking about his partner. She stiffened as I described her face and her build.

"Wait, hold up. What did you say her name was again?"

"Sarah… or something like that."

"Sierra?"

I clicked my fingers and pointed at her.

"We have a winner!" I said jokingly, but Demi was in no mood for games.

"This is bad. This is so bad."

Her voice had lowered to a bare whisper. She jumped from her place on the couch and began to pace frantically.

"Oh my God, they're going to kill me…" She trailed off.

"Demi, what's up? Who's Sierra?" I said worriedly, moving from where I had been seated on the couch and stepping in the way of her pacing.

"Demi… stop!" I exclaimed, grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her gently.

"I cant bare seeing you like this. Just tell me."

She raised her eyes from their position on the ground to meet mine.

"Please," I pleaded, "you can trust me."

"Okay."

She shrugged out of my hands and went back to her seat on the sofa. She downed the rest of her coffee and patted the cushion beside her, indicating that I sit too.

"The whole thing about Jared? Yeah, I suspected that. I knew he was going to New York too often to be normal, and I'd started to suspect that the second golden rule was a sham for power too. But Sierra? That is what worries me the most."

"You understand that when you become a Legion senior, you are assigned different tasks, right?"

I nodded, lapping up her information and trying to cement every particle of it into my memory.

"Jared and Jeremy do recruitments, and they're training you for recruitments too. But I am in a totally different sector. Ugh, I shouldn't be telling you this…"

"No," I insisted, rubbing her knee supportively, "go on."

She sighed and continued.

"My sector is called 'Elimination'. You don't need to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out what that means."

"In the sector of Elimination, there are two inner sectors; Internal and External. Internal deal with eliminations scheduled to people inside the Legion, and External deal with threats to the Legion. I'm in External."

"In my third assignment, my job was to eliminate a target called Kay Farrell. She was a criminal mastermind, and had been trying to kidnap Legion kids before they turned fourteen in an effort to somehow gain their power for herself. I was meant to shoot her dead but she saw me coming and started running. I hit her three times, and I really thought she was dead."

Her head flopped into her hands, and I could see she was trembling.

"But obviously, she's not. She had a couple of aliases, and one of them was Sierra Kusterbeck. She's probably trying to infiltrate the Legion through Jared."

"Jared doesn't know that she knows about the Legion," I interrupted, "he told her that he works at an office."

"And you think she bore a child to the leader of the Legion because she actually loved him? She probably sees the child as no more than a pawn in her sick little game. We have to tell Jared, now."

She got up and walked towards her bedroom. She stripped and redressed in under thirty seconds, not feeling the need to close the door because, of course, she knew I was gay. She finished getting dressed and began to walk to the door, but I stood in front of her.

"Hold up, Demi, how are you going to explain to him that you know about him being with Sierra? And would he not already know all about her history, since he is the leader of the Legion?"

She raised her eyebrows at me, giving me a 'duh' look.

"Well obviously, you're going to be there, so I wont have to explain. And no, he wouldn't know about her past. He may be the overall leader, but we work under the leader of our sector, and he only tells Jared the bare minimum. We have to go Inow/I Frank, the sooner Jared knows, the better."

She sidestepped me and walked out the door, giving me no option but to follow her. I slammed the door behind me and struggled to keep up with her as she ran down several staircases and onto the street. She turned down and alleyway and froze, causing me to slam into her. There were a group of men walking up the alley towards us, deep in conversation.

"Internals," she hissed.

She pushed me back until I was up against a wall. She then pressed our mouths together and began shoving her tongue between my lips. I was so shocked, I just stood there and tried to let her do whatever the fuck she was doing without puking in her mouth. I placed my hands on her hips and watched through veil of her hair that was covering our faces as the group walked past without blinking an eye at us. Once they were gone, I shoved her off of me and spat onto the ground, gagging.

"What the fuck was that? I thought you were a lesbian!" I said angrily.

She wiped her mouth and smiled smugly.

"I am. And everyone in the Legion knows. So how could the straight girl kissing a guy against a wall be me?"

"Why would it matter? Those guys are in your fucking sector, there are other ways to avoid small talk without eating my face! Like, I don't know, pretending you're on the phone?" I hissed.

"They wanted more than small talk." she snapped.

"Then what did they fucking want?" I spat.

"My dead body."

Her three words hit me harder than a moving truck. Who were those guys, and why did they want my best friend dead?

"Those Internals," she shuddered, "have been spying on me for the last week or so. I may have been a bit too loud with my suspicions about the second golden rule around headquarters and I think those guys are sent from Jared to see if I knew more than I should. Your story explains a lot about why he would care. We still need to find Jared and tell him about Sierra, though."

I sighed, I knew that Demi was right, as usual, so I hooked my arm into hers and tugged her towards the mouth of the alley.

"Let's get my certain death over and done with as soon as possible, Demetria darling."

"Not certain death, Frank darling. Certain blackmail, possible torture, but not death." she said cheerfully.

I tried to put on a smile as we began our walk to Jared's apartment, but inside, I was terrified. Jared had hated me with a vengeance since he first met me, mainly because I had a power that he didn't have. I knew he was just egging for an excuse to eliminate me. My knowing of his deepest, darkest secret was sure to be the cause of my death, and of the severe blackmailing of Demi. I couldn't stand the thought of her getting hurt, but still I continued to walk arm-in-arm with her in the direction of Jared's apartment.

It was at times like this when I really wondered if I would have been better off to have died on that day in the park all those years ago. Although this Legion had brought me many great friends, it had given more trouble than good, and there was no way to escape, especially for me. I had already tried to commit suicide once before, but after about seven tries, I just gave up and accepted the fact that, for now at least, I couldn't die. I wondered why Jared was so keen on obtaining my power. Could he not see the downsides that I was living through? I really hoped that when he did kill me, that he didn't inherit my power. I didn't wish it because I wanted to be the only invincible person on this earth, but because not being able to die is literally a living hell.

My mind wandered to thoughts of the apocalypse, and I wondered if, when the world explodes, would I still be alive floating through the vast realms of the universe for eternity.

I was pulled from apocalyptic thoughts by a sudden change of terrain. My eyes fell on a gold plague reading 'Paradisia Apartment Complex' and I realised that we were seconds away from entering Jared's home territory. I stopped in my tracks. Demi realised I wasn't moving and stopped too.

"Are you ready Frank?" she asked quietly.

"I'm ready. Ready to break free from this stupid fucking legion. But not ready to die." I whimpered.

Demi walked back until her whole body was pressed into mine in a hug.

"I'll help you break free, Frankie. I'll hold open the gates and set you free. I'll sit back and watch you soar to freedom." she replied softly, but her voice hardened suddenly. "And I would throw myself at Jared's mercy before I'd let you die."

"I love you so much, Demi." I mumbled into her shoulder.

I felt her body stiffen for the second time that morning, but it soon relaxed as she realised that nothing bad was going to come from those three words that it took all of my courage to say.

"I love you too, Frankie."


	13. Another Broken Life

I was gently woken by sunlight streaming through our living room window at just after 5am. For a few seconds I was disorientated, until I remembered the events of the night before. I shifted slightly under Mikey's dead weight until he slid off me. I stood up and walked through into the kitchen, making two cups of black coffee and walking back over to the couch where Mikey was now sitting up. I sat down beside him, handing him a cup.

"I've fucked it all up, Gerard."

"Fucked what up?"

He sighed, and sipped his coffee.

"Everything."

I put my hand on his shoulder and petted it reassuringly.

"I'm sure it's not that bad."

"It really is. Gerard, I said something so terrible last night." He glanced over at me, and I could see tears forming in his eyes. "The words I said actually disgust me, and I have no idea why I said them or where they came from."

"Shh," I cooed, placing my cup on the coffee table and pulling Mikey into a hug. "She'll forgive you."

"I-I don't think she will." Mikey mumbled into my shoulder, his voice cracking. "And even if she does, I won't be able to forgive myself."

"Just tell me what you said," I urged.

"I can't… because it was about you."

"That means I have an even bigger fucking right to know!" I teased.

"Alicia didn't like it, so you won't either. I can't tell you." He said, sounding stubborn.

I loved Mikey, I really did, but he was really pushing it now. I had spent the whole night comforting him, and now he refused to tell me what had made him so sad? He was going to tell me, whether he liked it or not, and the only way to make him was the H word.

"Mikey, I'm sick of your stupid mind games. I'll hate you if you don't tell me."

Mikey didn't hate, but if he did, he'd hate hate. Using the word hate, making him think he was hated, was the only way to get what you wanted from him.

There was silence, and then;

"I told her you were gay."

"Really? That was your big secret?" I chuckled, trying and failing to hide a laugh. But Mikey's face remained dark, leading me to think there was more to this. I stopped laughing and focused my attention back on him.

"No… it's so much worse. When we came back from the movies, I brought her in here, onto this sofa, and I tried to kiss her. It was going okay I suppose, until she randomly pulled away. I was a bit miffed, and then to make it worse, she tells me she's a lesbian!"

"Well, that doesn't explain why you were both so sad." I said, more so to myself than to Mikey.

"She asked if we could still be friends. And I said, 'yeah of course we can'," he swallowed, closing his eyes.

"I said, 'My brother's a fag too.' I meant to say something else, but that's just what came out. She like broke down in front of my eyes, asking if that's all she was to me, a fag. I tried to apologise, I really did, but every word I said seemed to dig me even deeper into this hole I've dug for myself. And then, as she was leaving, I said some really derogatory term about vaginas. Oh my God, what have I done." He shook his head.

I could kind of see why they were both so upset. Alicia had been called terrible names, and Mikey had lost 'the One', as he believed that she was perfect for him. I knew he didn't mean what he said, and that he's just awkward around girls, but I knew him so well and Alicia had just met him. I knew I had to do something about this. I couldn't stand to see my little brother in so much pain.

"How about you stay at home today? I'll go and talk to Alicia." I said sincerely.

"Really?" he asked, a dumbfounded look plastered across his face.

"Of course," I answered, winking, "considering we're both fags, she'll probably empathise more if the apology is from me."

I still managed to crack a smile from Mikey, despite the terrible joke, and this was enough to make me content enough to leave for school.

I was a good half hour early, and decided I'd get Alicia out of the way as soon as possible. I grabbed my bag and the Blink-182 EP for Ray and made my way to the freshmen's locker area. It didn't take me long to find her, her dark clothes making her stick out like a sore thumb. I tapped her shoulder gently, and she turned to look at me.

"Can I, um, talk to you in private?" I asked quietly.

"Fine," she snapped.

She slammed her locker shut and led me towards the familiar art room staircase.

"Whatever stupid excuse Mikey has given you, I don't want to hear it. He shouldn't have called me that." she said angrily.

"Excuse me," I said, trying to put on a comical voice, "but if what he told me is true, he also called me a fag. Even though he knew I didn't want people to know about it."

"So, you really are gay?" she said, lifting her left eyebrow cockily. She was obviously trying to change the subject.

"Yes, I am." I sighed.

"Mikey didn't mean what he said, okay. He's just so awkward around girls, he tries to treat them like guys so he can associate with them more. You're the first girl he's really gotten close to. I can assure you that he feels terrible about what he said, he's spent hours crying and couldn't even get himself together enough to come to school today. I know you might never like him as a boyfriend, but please forgive him so he has one true friend he can rely on? Please?"

A silence broke out between us as Alicia processed my second hand apology..

"I'm not really a lesbian." she said suddenly.

"What?" I said, nearly choking on my own spit.

"I. Am not. A lesbian. I just don't want to date your brother. Or anyone, for that matter. I have to be alone. I'll just end up hurting him, and he'll end up hurting me."

"You could have just kept him in the friend zone instead of leading him along." I said coldly.

"I couldn't. I'm still a teenager, I have urges. And so does Frank."

My blood ran cold and the world seemed to grind to a stop. What the fuck does this freshman know about Frank? I'd never seen them together before.

"Frank?" I whimpered. "How do you know what urges Frank has?"

The colour drained from her face and her eyes widened like a rabbit caught in headlights. She moved her mouth to form words, but no sound came out. I blinked, and she was gone. And by gone, I mean literally not there anymore. She'd disappeared into thin air.

"What the fuck?" I muttered.

My mind was on overdrive. One second, she's there, another, she's not. One second I'm beaten to a pulp, the next I'm fine. Whatever kind of creepy shit was going on here, I knew that they had to be in this together. They had to be the same.

I had really tried hard to push the whole healing incident to the back of my mind, but it was easier said than done. Yesterday, while I was playing video games with Taylor, I kept getting these flashbacks to when I was lying on the ground, Frank's rough hands brushing over my open wounds so delicately, as if I were about to fall to pieces and his touch was the glue that was holding me together.

They freaked me out, and I didn't even want to think about Frank having weird powers. I just wanted to see him again, hoping that if I saw his devilish face once more I'd forget the memories of that night and create new ones to replace them.

But now, Alicia's words and little disappearing act had affected me too. There was absolutely no logical explanation as to how she was there, and then suddenly not. She had to have magic. And if she did, maybe Frank did too…

The bell rang, signalling the start of the school day and slicing through my train of thought. I just have to make it through one day, I thought, and then I can find Frank and ask him myself. He'd probably call me crazy for thinking such stupid things and explain it all to me. At least, I hoped he would.

Taylor's words came back to me then. Apparently he'd made someone need to see a psychiatrist, and now I was starting to understand why. Maybe she had seen his weird powers too? And Alicia's? My mind began to wander to thoughts of a teenage magical mutant army, and that's where I had to reign in my thoughts. It was bad enough being gay because of him, I was [i]not[/i] going to end up being a mental case because of him too.


End file.
